Revisiting the Northern Mode of East Asian Winter Monsoon Variation and Its Response to Global Warming

Hainan Gong Center for Monsoon System Research, and LASG, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

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Lin Wang Center for Monsoon System Research, and LASG, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

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Wen Zhou Guy Carpenter Asia-Pacific Climate Impact Centre, School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
City University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Research Institute, Shenzhen, China

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Wen Chen Center for Monsoon System Research, and LASG, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
School of Earth Science, University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

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Renguang Wu Center for Monsoon System Research, and LASG, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

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Lin Liu State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, China

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Debashis Nath Center for Monsoon System Research, and LASG, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

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Marco Y.-T. Leung Guy Carpenter Asia-Pacific Climate Impact Centre, School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

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Abstract

This study revisits the northern mode of East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM) variation and investigates its response to global warming based on the ERA dataset and outputs from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) models. Results show that the observed variation in East Asian surface air temperature (EAT) is tightly coupled with sea level pressure variation in the expanded Siberian high (SH) region during boreal winter. The first singular value decomposition (SVD) mode of the EAT and SH explains 95% of the squared covariance in observations from 1961 to 2005, which actually represents the northern mode of EAWM variation. Meanwhile, the first SVD mode of the EAT and SH is verified to be equivalent to the first empirical orthogonal function mode (EOF1) of the EAT and SH, respectively. Since the leading mode of the temperature variation is significantly influenced by radiative forcing in a rapidly warming climate, for reliable projection of long-term changes in the northern mode of the EAWM, we further employ the EOF1 mode of the SH to represent the northern mode of EAWM variation. The models can well reproduce this coupling between the EAT and SH in historical simulations. Meanwhile, a robust weakening of the northern mode of the EAWM is found in the RCP4.5 scenario, and with stronger warming in the RCP8.5 scenario, the weakening of the EAWM is more pronounced. It is found that the weakening of the northern mode of the EAWM can contribute 6.7% and 9.4% of the warming trend in northern East Asian temperature under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, respectively.

© 2018 American Meteorological Society. For information regarding reuse of this content and general copyright information, consult the AMS Copyright Policy (www.ametsoc.org/PUBSReuseLicenses).

Corresponding author: Wen Chen, cw@post.iap.ac.cn

Abstract

This study revisits the northern mode of East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM) variation and investigates its response to global warming based on the ERA dataset and outputs from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) models. Results show that the observed variation in East Asian surface air temperature (EAT) is tightly coupled with sea level pressure variation in the expanded Siberian high (SH) region during boreal winter. The first singular value decomposition (SVD) mode of the EAT and SH explains 95% of the squared covariance in observations from 1961 to 2005, which actually represents the northern mode of EAWM variation. Meanwhile, the first SVD mode of the EAT and SH is verified to be equivalent to the first empirical orthogonal function mode (EOF1) of the EAT and SH, respectively. Since the leading mode of the temperature variation is significantly influenced by radiative forcing in a rapidly warming climate, for reliable projection of long-term changes in the northern mode of the EAWM, we further employ the EOF1 mode of the SH to represent the northern mode of EAWM variation. The models can well reproduce this coupling between the EAT and SH in historical simulations. Meanwhile, a robust weakening of the northern mode of the EAWM is found in the RCP4.5 scenario, and with stronger warming in the RCP8.5 scenario, the weakening of the EAWM is more pronounced. It is found that the weakening of the northern mode of the EAWM can contribute 6.7% and 9.4% of the warming trend in northern East Asian temperature under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, respectively.

© 2018 American Meteorological Society. For information regarding reuse of this content and general copyright information, consult the AMS Copyright Policy (www.ametsoc.org/PUBSReuseLicenses).

Corresponding author: Wen Chen, cw@post.iap.ac.cn
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