Moisture Sources and Their Contributions to Summer Precipitation in the East of Southwest China

Complex topography, special geographical location and sea-land-air interactions lead to high interannual variability of summer precipitation in the east of Southwest China (ESWC). However, the contributions, influencing factors and mechanisms of remote and local evaporation remain to be further investigated. Using clustering analysis and Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory version 5 model, we analyze the contributions of remote moisture transport and local evaporation to summer precipitation in the ESWC and their causes. There are mainly five remote moisture channels in the ESWC, namely the Arabian Sea channel, Bay of Bengal channel, western Pacific channel, Northwest channel 1 and Northwest channel 2. Among the five channels, the western Pacific channel has the largest number of trajectories, while the Bay of Bengal channel has the largest contribution rate of specific humidity (33.33%) and moisture flux (33.14%). The amount of regional average precipitation is close to that of the precipitation caused by remote moisture transport, and both are considerably greater than the rainfall amount caused by local evaporation. However, on interannual time scales, precipitation recirculation rates are negatively correlated to regional average precipitation and precipitation caused by remote moisture transport but are consistent with that caused by local evaporation. An apparent "+ ? +" wave train can be found on the height anomaly field in East Asia, and the sea surface temperature anomalies are positive in the equatorial Middle-East Pacific, the South China Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. These phenomena cause southwest-northeast moisture transport with strong updrafts, thereby resulting in more precipitation in the ESWC.     

Validation of Land Surface Temperature Derived from 37-GHz AMSR-E over Northern China

A validation study of land surface temperature (LST) obtained from the Ka band (37 GHz) vertically polarized brightness temperature over northern China is presented.The remotely sensed LST derived jointly by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (VUA-NASA) from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) were compared to the daily in-situ top soil temperature/infrared surface temperature observations from eleven/three Enhanced Coordinated Observation stations in arid and semi-arid regions of northern China.The VUA-NASA LST from the descending path exhibited a stronger correspondence to the in-situ infrared surface temperature than soil temperature observations,whereas correlations (R 2) of the latter ranged from 0.41 to 0.86.Meanwhile,the ascending overpass LST was generally warmer than the in-situ soil temperature observations at all stations,and the correlation (R 2) was between 0.07 and 0.72.Furthermore,the correlation of the descending path was generally greater than that of the ascending path at the same station.The descending path VUA-NASA LST was sensitive to precipitation and presented good agreement with ground temperature dynamics.The analyses demonstrated that the descending overpass LST was reliable to reflect reasonable patterns of temperature dynamics for land surface temperature in the region.     

The Response of Anomalous Vertically Integrated Moisture Flux Patterns Related to Drought and Flood in Southern China to Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly

With the extreme drought (flood) event in southern China from July to August in 2022 (1999) as the research object, based on the comprehensive diagnosis and composite analysis on the anomalous drought and flood years from July to August in 1961-2022, it is found that there are significant differences in the characteristics of the vertically integrated moisture flux (VIMF) anomaly circulation pattern and the VIMF convergence (VIMFC) anomaly in southern China in drought and flood years, and the VIMFC, a physical quantity, can be regarded as an indicative physical factor for the "strong signal" of drought and flood in southern China. Specifically, in drought years, the VIMF anomaly in southern China is an anticyclonic circulation pattern and the divergence characteristics of the VIMFC are prominent, while those are opposite in flood years. Based on the SST anomaly in the typical draught year of 2022 in southern China and the SST deviation distribution characteristics of abnormal draught and flood years from 1961 to 2022, five SST high impact areas (i.e., the North Pacific Ocean, Northwest Pacific Ocean, Southwest Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, and East Pacific Ocean) are selected via the correlation analysis of VIMFC and the global SST in the preceding months (May and June) and in the study period (July and August) in 1961-2022, and their contributions to drought and flood in southern China are quantified. Our study reveals not only the persistent anomalous variation of SST in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean but also its impact on the pattern of moisture transport. Furthermore, it can be discovered from the positive and negative phase fitting of SST that the SST composite flow field in high impact areas can exhibit two types of anomalous moisture transport structures that are opposite to each other, namely an anticyclonic (cyclonic) circulation pattern anomaly in southern China and the coastal areas of east China. These two types of opposite anomalous moisture transport structures can not only drive the formation of drought (flood) in southern China but also exert its influence on the persistent development of the extreme weather.     

Projections of 2.0°C Warming over the Globe and China under RCP4.5

The outputs of 17 models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) are employed to investigate the temporal and spatial features of 2.0°C warming of the surface temperature over the globe and China under the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 scenario. The simulations of the period 1860-1899 in the "historical" experiment are chosen as the baseline. The simulations for the 21st century in the RCP4.5 experiment are chosen as the future project. The multi-model ensemble mean (MME) shows that the global mean temperature would cross the 2.0°C warming threshold in 2047. Warming in most of the models would cross the threshold during 2030-2060. For local warming, high-latitude areas in the Northern Hemisphere show the fastest warming over the globe. Land areas warm substantially faster than the oceans. Most of the southern oceans would not exceed the 2.0°C warming threshold within the 21st century. Over China, surface warming is substantially faster than the global mean. The area-averaged warming would cross the 2.0°C threshold in 2034. Locally, Northwest China shows the fastest warming trend, followed by Central North China and Northeast China. Central China, East China, and South China are the last to cross the 2.0°C warming threshold. The diversity of the models is also estimated in this study. Generally, the spread among the models increases with time, and there is smaller spread among the models for the areas with the faster warming.     

Evaluation of the WRF Model with Different Land Surface Schemes： A Drought Event Simulation in Southwest China during 2009–10

The authors examined the performance of version 3.4.1 of the Weather Research and Forecasting Model（WRF） with various land surface schemes in simulating a severe drought event in Southwest China. Five numerical experiments were completed using the Noah land surface scheme, the Pleim-Xiu land surface scheme, the Noah-MP land surface schemes, the Noah- MP scheme with dynamic vegetation, and the Noah-MP scheme with dynamic vegetation and groundwater processes. In general, all the simulations reasonably reproduced the spatial and temporal variations in precipitation, but significant bias was also found, especially for the spatial pattern of simulated precipitation. The WRF simulations with the Noah-MP series land surface schemes performed slightly better than the WRF simulation with the Noah and Pleim-Xiu land surface schemes in reproducing the severe drought events in Southwest China. The leaf area index（LAI） simulated by the different land surface schemes showed significant deviations in Southwest China. The Pleim-Xiu scheme overestimated the value of LAI by a factor of two. The Noah-MP scheme with dynamical vegetation overestimated the magnitude of the annual cycle of the LAI, although the annual mean LAI was close to observations. The simulated LAI showed a long-term lower value from autumn 2009 to spring 2010 relative to normal years. This indicates that the LAI is a potential indictor to monitor drought events.