The Pioneering Works of Professor Duzheng YE on Atmospheric Dispersion,Tibetan Plateau Meteorology,and Air–Sea Interaction

This paper provides an overview of the impacts of the original works of Professor Duzheng YE on a selected set of observational and model studies with which the present author has been associated over the past several decades. The main themes of these works include atmospheric energy dispersion, air–land interactions over the Tibetan Plateau, and El Ni n?orelated air–sea coupling over East Asia.The dispersive behavior of observed atmospheric fluctuations accompanying cold surge events in East Asia is demonstrated. Cold air outbreaks over Korea and southern China are coincident with the successive downstream development of troughs and ridges, with the group velocity of such wave packets being notably faster than the phase propagation speed of individual troughs and ridges. In a more general context, dispersive features are also discernible from lagged teleconnection charts and cross-spectra of observed and model-simulated geopotential height variations on 10–30-day time scales.Using the output from a high-resolution general circulation model, the relative contributions of condensational, sensible, and radiative heating to the atmospheric energy budget over the Tibetan Plateau are documented. The rapid changes of the upper tropospheric Tibetan anticyclone and East Asian mei-yu("plum rain") precipitation band associated with the development of the Asian monsoon system are described.The principal anomalies in sea level pressure, surface wind, precipitation and sea surface temperature over southeastern China and the Philippine Sea region during El Nio events are presented. The contributions of remote El Nio-related forcing and local air–sea interaction to the occurrence of these anomalies are assessed.     

Projected changes in the characteristics of the East Asian summer monsoonal front and their impacts on the regional precipitation

Summer monsoonal rainfall over East Asia is dominated by precipitation associated with the East Asian summer monsoonal front (EASMF). A Community Atmospheric Model (CAM5.1) with a high horizontal resolution of 50 km is employed in this study to investigate the interannual variability as well as projected future trends in the EASMF under the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 scenario. Seasonal march of the EASMF is reproduced reasonably well in the model’s present-day simulation despite a northward shift of the simulated front from its observed position. Based upon a suite of objectively-defined daily indices of the EASMF, we show that the EASMF in the late twenty-first century will be more intense and displaced eastward and southward from its present-day mean location. Moreover, EASMF events will exhibit a wider meridional expansion and a longer duration. Monsoonal precipitation over East Asia is particularly sensitive to the meridional displacements of EASMF. In conjunction with the projected southward shift of EASMF, an enhanced rain band is seen to extend northeastward from southern China to the northwestern Pacific south of Japan. This precipitation feature is associated with strengthened and southward-shifted westerly jet streams at 250 and 700 hPa, which are respectively linked to tropical warming in the upper troposphere and warming over the South China Sea in the lower troposphere during the twenty-first century. Within the latitudinal “gap” south of the upper-level jet and north of the lower-level jet, the local vorticity tendencies are maintained by upper-level divergence and lower-level convergence, thus accompanied by enhanced upward motion and precipitation. The site at which this “jet stream-precipitation” relationship prevails is notably modulated by long-term trends in the temperature and circulation patterns associated with climate change.