NUMERICAL SIMULATION EXPERIMENTS OF THE IMPACTS OF LOCAL LAND-SEA THERMODYNAMIC CONTRASTS ON THE SCS SUMMER MONSOON ONSET

1INTRODUCTIONAmongdrivingfactorsfortheEastAsianmonsoonareplanetary-scaleland-seathermodynamiccontrast(e.g.betweentheEurasiancontinentandthePacificOcean)andsub-planetary-scaleone(e.g.betweentheIndochinaandtheSouthChinaSea).ItisovertheSouthChinaSea(SCS)andadjoiningareasthattheEastAsiansummermonsoonfirstbreaksout.ItthenadvancestotheregionsofEastAsiaandSouthAsia.ItisthereforenaturaltofindlocalgeographicandtopographiceffectsoftheSCSregionevidentlyshownontheonsetoftheSCSsummermonsoon…

NUMERICAL SIMULATION EXPERIMENTS OF THE IMPACTS OF LOCAL LAND-SEA THERMODYNAMIC CONTRASTS ON THE SCS SUMMER MONSOON ONSET

The important effects of local land-sea thermodynamic contrast between the South China Sea (SCS) and Indochina Peninsula on SCS summer monsoon onset are preliminarily studied by using two sets of SSTA tests and two ideal tests in s-p regional climate model. The result shows that warm SST in the SCS in winter and spring is favorable for the formation of monsoon circulation throughout all levels of the atmosphere over the sea, which hastens the onset of SCS summer monsoon. The effects of cold SST are generally the opposite. The local land-sea contrast in the SCS is one of the possible reasons for SCS summer monsoon onset. Superposed upon large-scale land-sea thermodynamic differences, it facilitates the formation of out-breaking onset characteristics of SCS summer monsoon in the SCS area.