The Monsoon of East Asia and Its Global Associations—A Survey

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The Monsoon of East Asia and Its Global Associations—A Survey The Monsoon of East Asia and its Ka-Ming Lau1 Global Associations—A Survey and Mai-Tsun Li2 Abstract is by no means a regular, nor stationary feature in space and time. There are large intraseasonal as well as interannual vari- Observations concerning the summer and winter monsoons of East abilities associated with its transition, maintenance, and ex- Asia and their global associations are reviewed. The seasonal mean tent of remote influence or teleconnections. structure, transient variation, including intraseasonal to interan- In this paper, first we review some observations that define nual, and synoptic to planetary scale fluctuations are discussed sepa- rately for the two monsoon components. Similarities and differences the basic structure including the spatial and temporal scales between the East Asian monsoon and that of India are also surveyed. of the regional and planetary scale aspects of both the We also present a description of the current status of monsoon re- summer and the winter monsoon of East Asia. We then dis- lated observational and theoretical research and highlight important cuss the anomalies in both components of the monsoon and scientific problems. The importance of understanding the long-term anomalies of the monsoon is stressed, and an attempt is made to put their possible relationships with atmospheric teleconnection the East Asian monsoon in a global perspective with a view towards and long range predictions. The main objectives of this paper identifying with the problems of long-range weather forecasting or are: 1) to serve as an introduction to the many facets of the short-term climate prediction, in general. Finally, some future direc- East Asian monsoons and 2) to review studies that have been tions of research are suggested. conducted in China and elsewhere in order to delineate po- tential scientific problems, and provide a stimulus for further research in these areas. 1. Introduction Bordered by the Tibetan Plateau to the west, the Euroasian 2. The summer monsoon land mass to the northwest, and the vast Pacific Ocean to the south and east, East Asia has experienced one of the most a. Large-scale mean circulation pronounced monsoon climates of the globe for centuries. Monsoon related droughts and floods have had enormous The large-scale mean circulation of the East Asian summer social and economic impacts on the people of China and the monsoon is characterized by strong cross-equatorial flows countries of southeast Asia, which form a large segment of from the southern to the northern hemisphere in the lower the world's population. The study of the monsoon is now the troposphere, near the longitudes of the east coast of Africa number-one priority in the national program for long-range and the maritime continent of Borneo and Indonesia, as well forecasting and climate research of the government of the as a strong westerly flow over South India and southwesterly People's Republic of China. flow over China (Fig. la). This circulation is superposed at The monsoon, by definition, is a reversal of wind with the 200 mb (Fig. lb) by an intense anticyclone centered over the season. The East Asian monsoon, in particular, exhibits a Tibetan Plateau and strong easterly winds near 10°N stretch- distinct summer and winter component. This is different ing from Indochina to west Africa. The divergent part of the from the Indian monsoon in that the winter monsoon of circulation consists of a gigantic, thermally-direct circula- India is not known to be present to any significant extent. tion with hot air rising over Tibet and Indochina, and cold air During the summer, the bulk of central and eastern Asia is sinking over the adjacent areas (Fig. lc). Figs. 2a and b show under the influence of southwest surface winds accompanied the vertical structure of the divergent N-S and E-W circula- by heavy rain, and a generally hot and humid climate. Dur- tion associated with the summer monsoon. The local Hadley ing the winter, the prevailing surface wind over the same area circulation between 75°E-110°E is manifested in the pole- is northeasterly, originating from a huge anticyclonic circu- ward surface flow toward the elevated Tibetan heat source, lation over Siberia. This circulation brings cold dry continen- with equatorward return flow aloft (Fig. 2a). At 10°N, the tal air mass to the eastern and southern coastal region of center of rising motion of the Walker-type circulation is China. Although an annual event, the monsoon of East Asia found at 500 mb over the Bay of Bengal, with the strongest sinking motion over the Arabian Sea and East Africa (Fig. 2b). A strong sinking motion is found over vast areas of the cen- tral Pacific at 25°N (not shown). 1 Laboratory for Atmospheric Sciences, NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771. 2 Center for Meteorology and Physical Oceanography, Massachu- setts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139. Permanent af- b. Tibetan heat source filiation: Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Academia Sinica, Beij- ing, People's Republic of China. The importance of the Tibetan Plateau as an elevated heat source during the northern summer has been noted by many © 1984 American Meteorological Society authors (e.g., Flohn, 1957, 1968; Koteswaram, 1958, Mura- 114 Vol. 65, No. 2, February 1984 Unauthenticated | Downloaded 10/05/21 10:14 AM UTC Bulletin American Meteorological Society 115 FIG. 1. Mean summer streamline pattern at 850 mb (upper panel) and 200 mb (middle panel) and 200 mb velocity potential (lower FIG. 2. a) Vertical cross-section of wind vectors between 75-110°E panel) including divergent wind vectors. Adapted from Webster et showing streamline flow of the Hadley circulation during the East ai, (1977). Asian summer monsoon, b) Vertical cross-section of wind vectors along 10°N, showing streamline flow of the Walker circulation dur- ing the East Asian summer monsoon. kami, 1958, 1981; Yeh, 1981 and Luo and Yanai, 1983). Situ- strong low-level westerly flow from the Arabian sea to ated on the leeside of the plateau, East Asia comes under the southwest China. Recent studies (e.g., Wang and Li, 1982) direct influence of the thermal and dynamical forcing by this suggest that by the time this surface westerly flow over India huge elevated land mass. Sensible heat flux over the semi-arid reaches China, its heat and moisture content are mostly de- western region of the plateau and latent heat release above pleted and, therefore, its influence on the monsoon rain over the Himalayas, contribute to a strong tropospheric heat South China will only be marginal, at best. It is now known source which maintains the large scale Asian monsoon circu- that a large part of the summer monsoon climate over south- lation. Not only does the plateau determine the large scale ern and central China, including the Yangtze basin is circulation, but it also has profound influence on synoptic strongly controlled by the low-level southerly surface flow scale events over monsoon China. Tao and Ding (1981) over the maritime continent of Borneo and Indonesia (see Fig. showed that severe convective storms and heavy rain activity la). This flow, which crosses the equator near 100°E, appears over the middle and lower Yangtze basin often have their to originate from anticyclonic outflow over Australia, and origin near the plateau. During the mid-summer monsoon becomes the prevalent surface circulation over China. As the months of July to August, low-level cyclonic vortices gener- peak monsoon period approaches, this southerly or south- ated in the boundary layer over the rugged terrain of the pla- westerly flow penetrates progressively further into northern teau are frequently steered into the monsoon low-level China and Japan. As a counterpart to the Somali jet which trough, where they intensify and develop into major convec- heralds the Indian summer monsoon (Findlater, 1969, 1972, tive systems. 1974), a low-level southerly jet also is observed near 20°N, The above description is only a very brief outline of the ef- 110°-115°E, reaching to a maximum of 8 m/s near 2 km in fect of the plateau on the weather and climate of East Asia. July (Fig. 3). The meteorology of the plateau itself and other associated The onset of heavy summer monsoon rain over the phenomena are diverse and extremely interesting, but are Yangtze basin occurs around late June following the build- outside the scope of this survey. For a more comprehensive up of this low-level jet in a similar manner to the onset of account of the subject, the reader is referred to the work of heavy rain over western India after the intensification of the Yeh and Gao (1979). Somali jet in late May to early June. A major difference be- tween the Chinese and the Indian monsoon is that while the former takes about two months to spread over an extensive area from southern to northern China, the monsoon rain- c. Low-level cross-equatorial flow band associated with the latter takes only about one to two Traditionally, the Chinese and the Indian monsoons were re- weeks to migrate from southern to northern India (Sikka and garded as one and the same system characterized by the Gadgil, 1980). However, it should be made clear that the In- Unauthenticated | Downloaded 10/05/21 10:14 AM UTC 116 Vol. 65, No. 2, February 1984 ageostropic jet is suggested to be a result of the downward transport of horizontal momentum by cumulus convection (Akiyama, 1973, and Ninomiya and Akiyama 1971). Re- cently Chou et al. (1982) showed that the low-level jet may be a result of momentum transport by the secondary meridional circulation induced by diabatic heating.
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