Ja-Yeon Moon

Teleconnections associated with Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon intraseasonal oscillation

The boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation (BSISO) has strong convective activity centers in Indian (I), Western North Pacific (WNP), and North American (NA) summer monsoon (SM) regions. The present study attempts to reveal BSISO teleconnection patterns associated with these dominant intraseasonal variability centers. During the active phase of ISM, a zonally elongated band of enhanced convection extends from India via the Bay of Bengal and Philippine Sea to tropical central Pacific with suppressed convection over the eastern Pacific near Mexico. The corresponding extratropical circulation anomalies occur along the waveguides generated by the North African-Asian jet and North Atlantic-North European jet. When the tropical convection strengthens over the WNPSM sector, a distinct great circle-like Rossby wave train emanates from the WNP to the western coast of United States (US) with an eastward shift of enhanced meridional circulation. In the active phase of NASM, large anticyclonic anomalies anchor over the western coast of US and eastern Canada and the global teleconnection pattern is similar to that during a break phase of the ISM. Examination of the evolution of the BSISO teleconnection reveals quasi-stationary patterns with preferred centers of teleconnection located at Europe, Russia, central Asia, East Asia, western US, and eastern US and Canada, respectively. Most centers are embedded in the waveguide along the westerly jet stream, but the centers at Europe and Russia occur to the north of the jet-induced waveguide. Eastward propagation of the ISO teleconnection is evident over the Pacific-North America sector. The rainfall anomalies over the elongated band near the monsoon domain over the Indo-western Pacific sector have an opposite tendency with that over the central and southern China, Mexico and southern US, providing a source of intraseasonal predictability to extratropical regions. The BSISO teleconnection along and to the north of the subtropical jet provides a good indication of the surface sir temperature anomalies in the NH extratropics.

Future Change of extreme temperature climate indices over East Asia with uncertainties estimation in the CMIP5

How well the climate models simulate extreme temperature over East Asia and how the extreme indices would change under anthropogenic global warming are investigated. The indices studied include hot days (HD), tropical nights (TN), growing degree days (GDD), and cooling degree days (CDD) in summer and heating degree days (HDD) and frost days (FD) in winter. The representative concentration pathway 4.5 (RCP 4.5) experiments for the period of 2075–2099 are compared with historical simulations for the period of 1979–2005 from 15 coupled models that are participated in phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). To optimally estimate future change and its uncertainty, groups of best models are selected based on Taylor diagrams, relative entropy, and probability density function (PDF) methods previously suggested. Overall, the best models’ multi-model ensemble based on Taylor diagrams has the lowest errors in reproducing temperature extremes in the present climate among three methods. Selected best models in three methods tend to project considerably different changes in the extreme indices from each other, indicating that the selection of reliable models are of critical importance to reduce uncertainties. Three groups of best models show significant increase of summerbased indices but decrease of the winter-based indices. Over East Asia, the most significant increase is seen in the HD (336 ± 23.4% of current climate) and the most significant decrease is appeared in the HDD (82 ± 4.2%). It is suggested that the larger future change in the HD is found over in the Southeastern China region, probably due to a higher local maximum temperature in the present climate. All of the indices show the largest uncertainty over Southeastern China, particularly in the TN (~3.9 times as large as uncertainty over East Asia) and in the HD (~2.4). It is further noted that the TN reveals the largest uncertainty over three East Asian countries (~1.7 and 1.4 over Korea and Japan, respectively). These future changes in extreme temperature events have an important implication for energy-saving applications and human molarity in the future.

An Anomalous Genesis Potential Index for MJO Modulation of Tropical Cyclones

AbstractModulation of tropical cyclone (TC) genesis by the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) has been quantitatively diagnosed by using a climatological genesis potential index (GPI). Analysis of TC genesis during November–April of 1979–2014 indicates the most effective factors controlling intraseasonal TC genesis are 850-hPa relative vorticity weighted by the Coriolis parameter fζr850 and 500-hPa vertical motion ω500. The total vertical wind shear and maximum potential intensity are unimportant, and the role of 600-hPa relative humidity is greatly represented by ω500. The MJO modulates TC genesis primarily through changing low-level vorticity induced by its Rossby wave gyres and meridional shears of equatorial zonal winds. A new intraseasonal GPI (ISGPI) is proposed to quantify the MJO’s modulation of TC genesis. The ISGPI significantly improves representation of intraseasonal variation of TC genesis in the tropics and in each subregion of the southern Indian Ocean, Australian monsoon, and South Pacific. I...

Subseasonal Prediction of Extreme Precipitation over Asia: Boreal Summer Intraseasonal Oscillation Perspective

AbstractThe boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation (BSISO) is one of the most prominent modes in the tropical climate system. For better subseasonal prediction of extreme precipitation the relationship between BSISO activity and extreme precipitation events (days with daily precipitation exceeding the local 90th percentile) over Asia is investigated, especially the dependence of extreme precipitation occurrence on BSISO precipitation anomaly pattern (phase) and intensity (amplitude) in each month. At a given area and month, the probability of extreme precipitation changes from less than 10% to over 40%–50% according to BSISO phases, and it tends to be high when BSISO amplitude is large. The extreme precipitation probability estimated by BSISO activity is generally higher over ocean than over land. Over some land regions, however, occurrence of extreme precipitation is notably modulated by BSISO activity. In May, the extreme precipitation probability over southeastern China can reach about 30%–40% when BS...

Association between Tropical Convection and Boreal Wintertime Extratropical Circulation in 1982/83 and 1988/89

Boreal wintertime extratropical circulation is studied in relation to the tropical convection during the 1982/83 El Niño and 1988/89 La Niña. The anomaly structure of 1982/83 and 1988/89 over the extratropics reveals remarkably different features as the longitudinal tropical forcing region changes. The Rossby wave source (Positive) shows the largest maximum over East Asia in both years due to the persistent heating from the western Pacific warm pool area. However, the sink term shows contrasting features over the subtropics and extratropics between the two years. In the El Niño year, enhanced tropical convection over the eastern Pacific produces the Rossby wave sink at 10°N and shifted eastward over the North Pacific, while in the La Niña year, the sink area is shifted westward over the North Pacific. The contrasting features between the two events in mean-eddy interaction appears especially over the downstream area of the East Asian Jet. The extension (retraction) of the meanflow eastward (westward) to the east (west) of the dateline is related with the effect of the westward (eastward) E-vector and the strengthening (weakening) of the negative anomalies of the barotropic growth of kinetic energy. Hence, almost opposite characteristics between the two events can explain the close relationship of tropical convection and the extratropical internal variability.

An Intraseasonal Genesis Potential Index for Tropical Cyclones during Northern Hemisphere Summer

AbstractAn intraseasonal genesis potential index (ISGPI) for Northern Hemisphere (NH) summer is proposed to quantify the anomalous tropical cyclone genesis (TCG) frequency induced by boreal summer ...