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Jianqiong Zhan
,
Wenyuan Chang
,
Wei Li
,
Yanming Wang
,
Liqi Chen
, and
Jinpei Yan

Abstract

Fujian Province in southeastern coastal China is a relatively clean region with low emissions, as its high altitude isolates it from the rest of the country. However, the region experienced haze episodes on 3–14 December 2013. The authors performed simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model coupled with chemistry (WRF-Chem) to examine the impacts of meteorological conditions, aerosol radiative feedbacks (ARFs; including aerosol direct and nearly first indirect effect), and internal and external emissions reduction scenarios on particulate matter smaller than 2.5 μm (PM2.5) concentrations. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time the WRF-Chem model has been used to study air quality in this region. The model reasonably reproduced the meteorological conditions and PM2.5 concentrations. The analysis demonstrated that the highest-PM2.5 event was associated with a cold surge that promoted the impingement of northern pollutants on the region, and PM2.5 concentrations were sensitive to the emissions from the Yangtze River delta (16.6%) and the North China Plain (12.1%). This suggests that efforts toward coastal air quality improvement require regional cooperation to reduce emissions. Noticeably, ARFs were unlikely to increase PM2.5 concentrations in the coastal region, which was in contrast to the case in northern China. ARFs induced strong clean wind anomalies in the coastal region and also lowered the inland planetary boundary layer, which enhanced the blocking of northern pollutants crossing the high terrain in the north of Fujian Province. This indicates that ARFs tend to weaken the haze intensity in the southeastern coastal region.

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You-xi Gao
,
Mao-cang Tang
,
Si-wei Luo
,
Zhi-bao Shen
, and
Ci Li

The Qinghai-Xizang (Tibet) Plateau has a profound influence on atmospheric circulation patterns on all time and space scales. This report constitutes a short summary of work being performed at the Lanzhou Institute of Plateau Atmospheric Physics of the Academia Sinica. A short discussion of the climatic characteristics of the plateau is followed by a description of the main features of annual and diurnal cycles in pressure and circulation patterns.

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Jiandong Li
,
Wei-Chyung Wang
,
Jiangyu Mao
,
Ziqian Wang
,
Gang Zeng
, and
Guoxing Chen

Abstract

Clouds strongly modulate regional radiation balance and their evolution is profoundly influenced by circulations. This study uses 2001–16 satellite and reanalysis data together with regional model simulations to investigate the spring shortwave cloud radiative effect (SWCRE) and the associated circulations over southeastern China (SEC). Strong SWCRE, up to −110 W m−2, persists throughout springtime in this region and its spring mean is the largest among the same latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. SWCRE exhibits pronounced subseasonal variation and is closely associated with persistent regional ascending motion and moisture convergence, which favor large amounts of cloud liquid water and resultant strong SWCRE. Around pentad 12 (late February), SWCRE abruptly increases and afterward remains stable between 22° and 32°N. The thermal and dynamic effects of Tibetan Plateau and westerly jet provide appropriate settings for the maintenance of ascending motion, while water vapor, as cloud water supply, stably comes from the southern flank of the Tibetan Plateau and South China Sea. During pentads 25–36 (early May to late June), SWCRE is further enhanced by the increased water vapor transport caused by the march of East Asian monsoon systems, particularly after the onset of the South China Sea monsoon. After pentad 36, these circulations quickly weaken and the SWCRE decreases accordingly. Individual years with spring strong and weak rainfall are chosen to highlight the importance of the strength of the ascending motion. The simulation broadly reproduced the observed results, although biases exist. Finally, the model biases in SWCRE–circulation associations are discussed.

Open access
Wei Zhao
,
Zhongmin Hu
,
Qun Guo
,
Genan Wu
,
Ruru Chen
, and
Shenggong Li

Abstract

Understanding the atmosphere–land surface interaction is crucial for clarifying the responses and feedbacks of terrestrial ecosystems to climate change. However, quantifying the effects of multiple climatic factors to vegetation activities is challenging. Using the geographical detector model (GDM), this study quantifies the relative contributions of climatic factors including precipitation, relative humidity, solar radiation, and air temperature to the interannual variation (IAV) of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in the northern grasslands of China during 2000 to 2016. The results show heterogeneous spatial patterns of determinant climatic factors on the IAV of NDVI. Precipitation and relative humidity jointly controlled the IAV of NDVI, illustrating more explanatory power than solar radiation and air temperature, and accounting for higher proportion of area as the determinant factor in the study region. It is noteworthy that relative humidity, a proxy of atmospheric aridity, is as important as precipitation for the IAV of NDVI. The contribution of climatic factors to the IAV of NDVI varied by vegetation type. Owing to the stronger explanatory power of climatic factors on NDVI variability in temperate grasslands, we conclude that climate variability may exert more influence on temperate grasslands than on alpine grasslands. Our study highlights the importance of the role of atmospheric aridity to vegetation activities in grasslands. We suggest focusing more on the differences between vegetation types when addressing the climate–vegetation relationships at a regional scale.

Free access
Jilan Jiang
,
Tonghua Su
,
Yimin Liu
,
Guoxiong Wu
,
Wei Yu
, and
Jinxiao Li

Abstract

An extreme drought occurred over Southeast China (SEC) in August 2019. We demonstrate synergistic effects of midlatitude and tropical circulation on this extreme event and highlight the impacts of the coupling and locking of two cyclones at different latitudes, which are otherwise ignored. We propose the relaying roles of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and western North Pacific in connection with the tropical convection and SEC precipitation. The equivalent-barotropic anticyclone over the TP and lower-tropospheric cyclone over the western North Pacific both resulted from the positive Indian Ocean dipole and El Niño Modoki. The equivalent-barotropic cyclone over Northeast China originated from the dispersion of Rossby waves upstream along the subtropical waveguide associated with the North Atlantic tripole sea surface temperature anomaly pattern and the Rossby wave response to the TP precipitation deficiency. Further, they jointly contributed to this drought by inducing strong northerly wind anomalies in the entire troposphere over East China. These anomalous northerly winds led to decreased warm moisture from the south and substantial sinking motions, which inhibited the occurrence of the SEC local convection and precipitation. The SEC precipitation is closely related to convection over the Maritime Continent from a climate perspective. This relationship is verified by observations, linear baroclinic model experiments, and general circulation model sensitivity experiments with and without the TP, in which precipitation anomalies over the southern TP and Philippine Sea play important bridge roles. The results will advance the prediction of the SEC extreme drought events.

Open access
Minghao Yang
,
Yi Li
,
Wei Dong
,
Weilai Shi
,
Peilong Yu
, and
Xiong Chen

Abstract

With a particular focus on the Siberian storm track, this study provides new insights into variations in the warm Arctic-cold Eurasia (WACE) temperature anomaly pattern by using reanalysis data. The results show that the Siberian storm track has a significant out-of-phase relationship with both the WACE pattern and Ural blocking on the interannual time scale. The strengthened WACE pattern can weaken the Siberian storm track through a suppression of the low-level atmospheric baroclinicity over midlatitude Eurasia. The weakened Siberian storm track can contribute to the WACE pattern through feedback forcing from synoptic-scale eddies, which can also create favorable conditions for the development of Ural blocking. Composite temporal evolution reveals that the strongest cold Arctic-warm Eurasia pattern is preceded by the peak of Siberian storm track. The Ural cyclonic circulation reaches its maximum amplitude on the peak day of the Siberian storm track strength and continues to persist for one day with the maximum amplitude due to the feedback forcing resulting from the Siberian storm track. On the intraseasonal time scale, the occurrence of the Siberian storm track activity can serve as an early indication of the diminished Ural blocking and WACE pattern.

Restricted access
Chih-Chiang Wei
,
Gene Jiing-Yun You
,
Li Chen
,
Chien-Chang Chou
, and
Jinsheng Roan

Abstract

Rainfall is a fundamental process in the hydrologic cycle. This study investigated the cause–effect relationship in which precipitation at lower frequencies affects the amount of emitted radiation and at higher frequencies affects the amount of backscattered terrestrial radiation. Because the advantage of a probabilistic graphical model is its graphical representation, which allows easy causality interpretation using the arc directions, two Bayesian networks (BNs) were used, namely, a naïve Bayes classifier and a tree-augmented naïve Bayes model. To empirically evaluate and compare BN-based models, “black box”–based models, including nearest-neighbor searches and artificial neural network (ANN)-based multilayer perceptron and logistic regression, were used as benchmarks. For the two study regions—namely, the Tanshui River basin in northern Taiwan and Chianan Plain in southern Taiwan—rain occurrences during typhoon seasons were examined using passive microwave imagery recorded using the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder. The results show that although black box models exhibit excellent prediction ability, interpretation of their behavior is unsatisfactory. By contrast, probabilistic graphical models can explicitly reveal the causal relationship between brightness temperatures and nonrain/rain discrimination. For the Tanshui River basin, 19.35-, 22.23-, 37.0-, and 85.5-GHz vertically polarized brightness temperatures were found to diagnose rain occurrences. For the Chianan Plain, a more sensitive indicator of rain-scattering signals was obtained using 85-GHz measurements. The results demonstrate the potential use of BNs in identifying rain occurrences in regions with land features comprising various absorbing and scattering materials.

Full access
Qin Xu
,
Kang Nai
,
Li Wei
,
Pengfei Zhang
,
Shun Liu
, and
David Parrish

Abstract

This paper describes a new velocity–azimuth display (VAD)-based dealiasing method developed for automated radar radial velocity data quality control to satisfy the high-quality standard and efficiency required by operational radar data assimilation. The method is built on an alias-robust velocity–azimuth display (AR-VAD) analysis. It upgrades and simplifies the previous three-step dealiasing method in three major aspects. First, the AR-VAD is used with sufficiently stringent threshold conditions in place of the original modified VAD for the preliminary reference check to produce alias-free seed data in the first step. Second, the AR-VAD is more accurate than the traditional VAD for the refined reference check in the original second step, so the original second step becomes unnecessary and is removed. Third, a block-to-point continuity check procedure is developed, in place of the point-to-point continuity check in the original third step, which serves to enhance the use of the available seed data in a properly enlarged block area around each flagged data point that is being checked with multiple threshold conditions to avoid false dealiasing. The new method has been tested extensively with aliased radial velocity data collected under various weather conditions, including hurricane high-wind conditions. The robustness of the new method is exemplified by the results tested with three cases. The limitations of the new method and possible improvements are discussed.

Full access
Yuntao Wei
,
Hong-Li Ren
,
Baoqiang Xiang
,
Yan Wang
,
Jie Wu
, and
Shuguang Wang

Abstract

The Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) is the dominant intraseasonal wave phenomenon influencing extreme weather and climate worldwide. Realistic simulations and accurate predictions of MJO genesis are the cornerstones for successfully monitoring, forecasting, and managing meteorological disasters 3–4 weeks in advance. Nevertheless, the genesis processes and emerging precursor signals of an eastward-propagating MJO event remain largely uncertain. Here, we find that the MJO genesis processes observed in the past four decades exhibit remarkable diversity with different seasonality and can be classified objectively into four types, namely, a novel downstream origin from the westward-propagating intraseasonal oscillation (WPISO; 20.4%), localized breeding from the Indian Ocean suppressed convection (IOSC; 15.4%), an upstream succession of the preceding weakly dispersive (WD; 25.9%), and strongly dispersive (SD; 38.3%) MJO. These four types are associated with different oceanic background states, characterized by central Pacific cooling, southern Maritime Continent warming, eastern Pacific cooling, and central Pacific warming for the WPISO, IOSC, WD, and SD types, respectively. The SD type is also favored during the easterly phase of the stratospheric quasi-biennial oscillation. Diverse convective initiations possibly imply various kinds of propagations of MJO. The subseasonal reforecasts indicate robustly distinct prediction skills for the diverse MJO genesis. A window of opportunity for skillful week 3–4 prediction probably opens with the aid of the WPISO-type MJO precursor, which has increased the predictability of primary MJO onset by 1 week. These findings suggest that the diversified MJO genesis can be skillfully foreseen by monitoring unique precursor signals and can also serve as benchmarks for evaluating contemporary models’ modeling and predicting capabilities.

Open access
Yuntao Wei
,
Fei Liu
,
Hong-Li Ren
,
Guosen Chen
,
Chengfeng Feng
, and
Bin Chen

Abstract

The boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation (BSISO) is a major source of subseasonal predictability of the East Asian summer monsoon. However, modeling and prediction of the BSISO remain major challenges partly due to an incomplete understanding of its eastward propagation. Our moisture budget analysis suggests that western Pacific (WPAC) premoistening leading the eastward-propagating (EP) BSISO is mainly attributed to the horizontal moisture advection with two centers in the lower and middle troposphere, respectively. The lower-tropospheric center is rooted in the linear moisture advection by flows from both the mean state and BSISO, while the middle-tropospheric center is induced by the nonlinear eddy moistening effect from the suppressed activity of synoptic tropical depression (TD) disturbances. The vertical profile of WPAC premoistening is significantly modulated by El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with the premoistening being enhanced in the lower troposphere and weakened in the middle troposphere during an El Niño summer, and vice versa in a La Niña summer. During an El Niño summer, the nonlinear eddy moistening effect is weakened in the middle troposphere due to less southwest–northeast tilt of the TD, while the linear moisture advection is enhanced in the lower troposphere due to strengthened background cross-equatorial flows and moisture gradients. These results suggest an urgent need to improve the simulation fidelity of the BSISO’s scale interactions with synoptic and interannual variabilities in climate models.

Significance Statement

In this work, we use statistical analysis to explore multiscale interactions of BSISO with synoptic and interannual variabilities using observations and reanalysis data. Our key finding shows that the ENSO significantly modulates the premoistening process of the BSISO over the WPAC. In an El Niño summer, the WPAC nonlinear eddy moistening effect leading the BSISO is weakened in the midtroposphere due to smaller southwest–northeast tilt of the TD, while the linear moistening effect is enhanced in the lower troposphere due to enhanced background cross-equatorial flow and moisture gradient. These results offer new metrics for validating climate models and for projecting BSISO’s future change under different global warming scenarios.

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