The daily precipitation data at 720 sta- tions over China for the 1957―2003 period during summer (May―August) are used to investigate the summer subseasonal long-cycle droughts-floods abrupt alternation (LDFA) phenomenon and a long-cycle droughts-floods abrupt alternation index (LDFAI) in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River (MLYRV) is defined to quantify this phenomenon. The large-scale atmospheric circula- tion features in the anomalous LDFA years are ex- amined statistically. Results demonstrate that the summer droughts-to-floods (DTF) in the MLYRV usually accompany with the more southward western Pacific subtropical high (WPSH), negative vorticity, strong divergence, descending movements develop- ing and the weak moisture transport in the low level, the more southward position of the South Asia high (SAH) and the westerly jets in the high level during May―June, but during July―August it is in the other way, northward shift of the WPSH, positive vorticity, strong convergence, ascending movements and strong moisture transport in the low level, and the northward shift of the SAH and the westerly jets in the high level. While for the summer floods-to-droughts (FTD) in the MLYRV it often goes with the active coldair mass from the high latitude, positive vorticity, strong convergence, ascending movement develop- ing and the strong moisture transport in the low level, and the SAH over the Tibetan Plateau in the high level, but during July―August it is often connected with the negative vorticity, strong divergence, de- scending movements developing and the weak moisture transport in the low level, the remarkable northward shift of the WPSH, the SAH extending northeastward to North China and the easterly jets prevailing in the high level over the MLYRV. In addi- tion, the summer LDFA in the MLYRV is of significant relationship with the Southern Hemisphere annual mode and the Northern Hemisphere annual mode in the preceding February, which offers some predictive signals for the summer LDFA foreca
Seasonal prediction of Asian-Australian monsoon （A-AM） precipitation is one of the most important and challenging tasks in climate prediction. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of Grid Atmospheric Model of IAP LASG （GAMIL） on retrospective prediction of the A-AM interannual variation （IAV）, and determine to what extent GAMIL can capture the two major observed modes of A-AM rainfall IAV for the period 1979-2003. The first mode is associated with the turnabout of warming （cooling） in the Nifio 3.4 region, whereas the second mode leads the warming/cooling by about one year, signaling precursory conditions for ENSO. We show that the GAMIL one-month lead prediction of the seasonal precipitation anomalies is primarily able to capture major features of the two observed leading modes of the IAV, with the first mode better predicted than the second. It also depicts the relationship between the first mode and ENSO rather well. On the other hand, the GAMIL has deficiencies in capturing the relationship between the second mode and ENSO. We conclude： （1） successful reproduction of the E1 Nifio-excited monsoon-ocean interaction and E1 Nifio forcing may be critical for the seasonal prediction of the A-AM rainfall IAV with the GAMIL; （2） more efforts are needed to improve the simulation not only in the Nifio 3.4 region but also in the joining area of Asia and the Indian-Pacific Ocean; （3） the selection of a one-tier system may improve the ultimate prediction of the A-AM rainfall IAV. These results offer some references for improvement of the GAMIL and associated seasonal prediction skill.
A striking climate warming over the Ti- betan Plateau during the last decades has been re- vealed by many studies, but evidence linking it to human activity is insufficient. By using historical ob- servations, here we show that the in situ climate warming is accompanied by a distinct decreasing trend of the diurnal range of surface air temperature. The ERA40 reanalysis further indicates that there seems to be a coherent warming trend near the tro- popause but a cooling trend in the lower stratosphere. Moreover, all these features can be reproduced in two coupled climate models forced by observed CO2 concentration of the 20th century but cannot be pro- duced by the fixed external conditions before the industrial revolution. These suggest that the recent climate warming over the Tibetan Plateau primarily results from the increasing anthropogenic green- house gases emissions, and impacts of the increased greenhouse gases emissions upon the climate change in the plateau are probably more serious than the rest of the world.
Four comparative experiments and some supplementary experiments were conducted to examine the role of meridional wind stress anomalies and heat flux variability in ENSO simulations by using a high-resolution Ocean General Circulation Model （OGCM）. The results indicate that changes in the direction and magnitude of meridional wind stress anomalies have little influence on ENSO simulations until meridional wind stress anomalies are unrealistically enlarged by a factor of 5.0. However, evidence of an impact on ENSO simulations due to heat flux variability was found. The simulated Nino-3 index without the effect of heat flux anomalies tended to be around 1.0° lower than the observed, as well as the control run, during the peak months of ENSO events.
This study examines cloud radiative forcing （CRF） in the Asian monsoon region （0° 50°N, 60° 150°E） simulated by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change （IPCC） Fourth Assessment Report （AR4） AMIP models. During boreal winter, no model realistically reproduces the larger long-wave cloud radiative forcing （LWCF） over the Tibet Plateau （TP） and only a couple of models reasonably capture the larger short-wave CRF （SWCF） to the east of the TP. During boreal summer, there are larger biases for central location and intensity of simulated CRF in active convective regions. The CRF biases are closely related to the rainfall biases in the models. Quantitative analysis further indicates that the correlation between simulated CRF and observations are not high, and that the biases and diversity in SWCF are larger than that in LWCF. The annual cycle of simulated CRF over East Asia （0°-50°N, 100°-145°E） is also examined. Though many models capture the basic annual cycle in tropics, strong LWCF and SWCF to the east of the TP beginning in early spring are underestimated by most models. As a whole, GFDL-CM2.1, MPI-ECHAM5, UKMO-HadGAM1, and MIROC3.2 （medres） perform well for CRF simulation in the Asian monsoon region, and the multi-model ensemble （MME） has improved results over the individual simulations. It is suggested that strengthening the physical parameterizations involved over the TP, and improving cumulus convection processes and model experiment design are crucial to CRF simulation in the Asian monsoon region.
In this paper,features for the evolution of the East Asia/Pacific(EAP) events and their association with high-and mid-latitude Rossby waves during the Meiyu period are analyzed on the medium-range time scale.It is shown that life cycles of the positive and negative EAP events cannot be simply regarded as "mirror" each other.In the upper troposphere,downward propagations of Rossby wave packets both over high-and mid-latitude regions of Eurasian continent and over the Asian jet region are responsible for generating basic patterns of high-and mid-latitude anomaly centers of the events.In this layer,Rossby wave packets also propagate from the mid-latitude anomaly center to the high-latitude one.In the middle and lower troposphere,the formation of the subtropical anomaly center of the event is mainly attributed to the anomalous convective activity in the tropical Pacific warm pool.The northward Rossby wave energy dispersion from this center is favorable to the enhancement and maintenance of the mid-latitude anomaly center in the same layer.Finally,it might be hypothesized that typical features of the positive and negative EAP events in their mature phase result from the interaction between(or phase-locking of) respective anomalous circulations induced both by quasi-zonal Rossby wave packets embedded in upper troposphere westerly and by quasi-meridional Rossby wave packets in the background flow of the East Asian summer monsoon in the middle and lower troposphere.
A review is presented about the development and application of climate ocean models and oceanatmosphere coupled models developed in China as well as a review of climate variability and climate change studies performed with these models. While the history of model development is briefly reviewed, emphasis has been put on the achievements made in the last five years. Advances in model development are described along with a summary on scientific issues addressed by using these models. The focus of the review is the climate ocean models and the associated coupled models, including both global and regional models, developed at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The progress of either coupled model development made by other institutions or climate modeling using internationally developed models also is reviewed.
