Dejian Yang

Characteristics and Mechanisms of the Subseasonal Eastward Extension of the South Asian High

AbstractThis study investigates the features of eastward extension of the South Asian high (SAH) and its connection with diabatic heating and rainfall over eastern Asia on subseasonal time scales. The causes of SAH’s eastward extension are examined by potential vorticity (PV) diagnosis with emphasis on the joint role of diabatic heating feedback and midlatitude wave train. The SAH’s eastward extension features eastward propagation of a wave train across Eurasia. Among the wave train, the migration of weak high from the western flank of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) to the east of TP contributes to the SAH’s eastward extension at the early stage. When the SAH approaches its easternmost position, a strong negative PV (positive geopotential height) center prevails to the east of the TP at 200 hPa. The associated anomalies in diabatic heating and rainfall include the anomalous heating and above-normal rainfall over the South China Sea (SCS) and subtropical western Pacific occurring 12 days before the SAH’s eastern...

Anthropogenic aerosol effects on East Asian winter monsoon: The role of black carbon‐induced Tibetan Plateau warming

This study investigates anthropogenic aerosol effects on East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM) with Community Atmospheric Model version 5. In winter, the anthropogenic aerosol optical depth is the largest over southern East Asia and adjacent oceans. The associated EAWM change, however, is the most significant in northern East Asia, which is characterized by a significant surface cooling in northern East Asia and an acceleration of the jet stream around 40°N, indicating an intensification of the EAWM northern mode. Such an intensification is attributed to anthropogenic black carbon (BC) induced Tibetan Plateau (TP) warming. The BC is mostly transported from northern South Asia by wintertime westerly and southwesterly, and then deposited on snow, giving rise to a reduction of surface albedo and an increase of surface air temperature via the snow-albedo feedback. The TP warming increases meridional temperature gradient and lower-tropospheric baroclinicity over northern East Asia, leading to the jet stream acceleration around 40°N and the westward shift of East Asian major trough via the transient eddy-mean flow feedback. Such upper-tropospheric pattern favors more cold air outbreak, leading to a large surface cooling in northern East Asia. In southern East Asia, the effect of non-absorbing aerosols is dominant. The solar flux at surface is significantly reduced directly by scattering of non-absorbing aerosols, and indirectly by intensification of short wave cloud forcing. Accordingly, the surface air temperature in southern East Asia is reduced. The precipitation is also significantly reduced in South China and Indo-China Peninsula, where the aerosol indirect effect is the largest.

Probabilistic versus deterministic skill in predicting the western North Pacific‐East Asian summer monsoon variability with multimodel ensembles

Based on historical forecasts of three quasi-operational multimodel ensemble (MME) systems, this study assesses the superiority of coupled MME over contributing single-model ensembles (SMEs) and over uncoupled atmospheric MME in predicting the Western North Pacific-East Asian summer monsoon variability. The probabilistic and deterministic forecast skills are measured by Brier skill score (BSS) and anomaly correlation (AC), respectively. A forecast-format-dependent MME superiority over SMEs is found. The probabilistic forecast skill of the MME is always significantly better than that of each SME, while the deterministic forecast skill of the MME can be lower than that of some SMEs. The MME superiority arises from both the model diversity and the ensemble size increase in the tropics, and primarily from the ensemble size increase in the subtropics. The BSS is composed of reliability and resolution, two attributes characterizing probabilistic forecast skill. The probabilistic skill increase of the MME is dominated by the dramatic improvement in reliability, while resolution is not always improved, similar to AC. A monotonic resolution-AC relationship is further found and qualitatively explained, whereas little relationship can be identified between reliability and AC. It is argued that the MMEs success in improving the reliability arises from an effective reduction of the overconfidence in forecast distributions. Moreover, it is examined that the seasonal predictions with coupled MME are more skillful than those with the uncoupled atmospheric MME forced by persisting sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies, since the coupled MME has better predicted the SST anomaly evolution in three key regions.

Synoptic-Scale Waves in Sheared Background Flow over the Western North Pacific

AbstractTropical depression (TD)-type waves are the dominant mode of synoptic-scale fluctuations over the western North Pacific. By applying spatiotemporal filters to the observed OLR data and the NCEP–DOE AMIP-II reanalysis data for 1979–2013, this study reveals the characteristics and energetics of convectively coupled TD-type waves under the effects of different circulation patterns in association with vertical wind shear. Results exhibit that different ambient sheared flows significantly affect the vertical structure of westward-propagating TD-type waves, with a lower-tropospheric mode in an easterly sheared background and an upper-tropospheric mode in a westerly sheared background. Energetic diagnoses demonstrate that when the disturbance is trapped in the lower (upper) level by easterly (westerly) shear, the horizontal mean flow in the lower (upper) level favors wave growth by converting energy from the shear of the zonal mean flow (from the convergence of the meridional mean flow). During the penet...

Effect of the tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean warming since the late 1970s on wintertime Northern Hemispheric atmospheric circulation and East Asian climate interdecadal changes

Observation reveals that the tropical Pacific-Indian Ocean (TPIO) has experienced a pronounced interdecadal warming since the end of the 1970s. Meanwhile, the wintertime midlatitude Northern Hemispheric atmospheric circulation and East Asian climate have also undergone substantial interdecadal changes. The effect of the TPIO warming on these interdecadal changes are identified by a suite of AMIP-type atmospheric general circulation model experiments in which the model is integrated from September 1948 to December 1999 with prescribed historical, observed realistic sea surface temperature (SST) in a specific region and climatological SST elsewhere. Results show that the TPIO warming reproduces quite well the observed Northern Hemispheric wintertime interdecadal changes, suggesting that these interdecadal changes primarily originate from the TPIO warming. However, each sub-region of TPIO has its own distinct contribution. Comparatively, the tropical central-eastern Pacific (TCEP) and tropical western Pacific (TWP) warming makes dominant contributions to the observed positive-phase PNA-like interdecadal anomaly over the North Pacific sector, while the tropical Indian Ocean (TIO) warming tends to cancel these contributions. Meanwhile, the TIO and TWP warming makes dominant contributions to the observed positive NAO-like interdecadal anomaly over the North Atlantic sector as well as the interdecadal anomalies over the Eurasian sector, although the TWP warming’s contribution is relatively small. These remote responses are directly attributed to the TPIO warming-induced tropical convection, rainfall and diabatic heating increases, in which the TIO warming has the most significant effect. Moreover, the TPIO warming excites a Gill-type pattern anomaly over the tropical western Pacific, with a low-level anticyclonic circulation anomaly over the Philippine Sea. Of three sub-regions, the TIO warming dominates such a pattern, although the TWP warming tends to cancel this effect. The anticyclonic circulation anomaly intensifies the southwesterly flow that transfers more moisture from the Bay of Bengal to East Asia and considerably increases the winter precipitation over the southern East Asia. This is strongly supported by the observational fact that there has been a significant interdecadal increase of winter precipitation over the southern China since the end of the 1970s.