This study analyzes data obtained by intensive observation during a pilot field campaign of the Years of the Maritime Continent Project (Pre-YMC) to investigate the diurnal cycle of precipitation in the western coastal area of Sumatra Island. The diurnal cycle during the campaign period (November–December 2015) is found to have a number of similarities with statistical behavior of the diurnal cycle as revealed by previous studies, such as afternoon precipitation over land, nighttime offshore migration of the precipitation zone, and dependency on Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) phase. Composite analyses of radiosonde soundings from the Research Vessel (R/V) Mirai, deployed about 50 km off the coast, demonstrate that the lower free troposphere starts cooling in late afternoon (a couple of hours earlier than the cooling in the boundary layer), making the lower troposphere more unstable just before precipitation starts to increase. As the nighttime offshore precipitation tends to be more vigorous on days when the cooling in the lower free troposphere is larger, it is possible that the destabilization due to the cooling contributes to the offshore migration of the precipitation zone via enhancement of convective activity. Comparison of potential temperature and water vapor mixing ratio tendencies suggests that this cooling is substantially due to vertical advection by an ascent motion, which is possibly a component of shallow gravity waves. These results support the idea that gravity waves emanating from convective systems over land play a significant role in the offshore migration of the precipitation zone.

This paper reveals synoptic-scale atmospheric conditions over the South China Sea (SCS) that cause heavy rainfall in central Vietnam through case study and composite analyses. The heavy rainfall event discussed in this study occurred on 2–3 November 1999. Precipitation in Hue city (central Vietnam) was more than 1800 mm for these 2 days. Two atmospheric disturbances played key roles in this heavy rainfall. First, a cold surge (CS) northerly wind anomaly in the lower troposphere, originating in northern China near 40°N, propagated southward to reach the northern SCS and then lingered there for a couple of days, resulting in stronger-than-usual northeasterly winds continuously blowing into the Indochina Peninsula against the Annam Range. Second, a southerly wind anomaly over the central SCS, associated with a tropical depression–type disturbance (TDD) in southern Vietnam, seemed to prevent the CS from propagating farther southward. Over the northern SCS, the southerly wind anomaly formed a strong low-level convergence in conjunction with the CS northeasterly wind anomaly, and supplied warm and humid tropical air. These conditions induced by the CS and TDD are favorable for the occurrence of the heavy orographic rainfall in central Vietnam. The TDD can be regarded as a result of a Rossby wave response to a large-scale convective anomaly over the Maritime Continent associated with equatorial intraseasonal variability. Using a 24-yr (1979–2002) reanalysis and surface precipitation datasets, the authors confirm that the coexistence of the CS and TDD is important for the occurrence of heavy precipitation in central Vietnam. In addition, it is observed that CSs without a TDD do not lead to much precipitation.

The diurnal cycle over tropical coastal waters is characterized by offshore migration of precipitation area during nighttime. This study analyzes in situ observational data collected during the YMC-Sumatra 2017 field campaign around the western coast of Sumatra Island, Indonesia, to examine the offshore migration phenomenon during 5–31 December 2017, when the Research Vessel Mirai was deployed about 90 km off the coast to perform observation. The offshore migration is observed in only less than a half of the 27 days. A comparison of radiosonde data at the vessel between days with and without the offshore migration reveals that vertical wind shear in the lower troposphere is a key environmental condition. In late afternoon of the days with the offshore migration, offshore (northeasterly) wind shear with height with considerable magnitude is observed, which is due to weaker daily mean southwesterly wind in the lower free troposphere, stronger southwesterly wind in the boundary layer, and sea breeze. As this condition is considered favorable for regeneration of convective cells to the offshore side of old ones, these results support an idea that the regeneration process is critical for the offshore migration. The Madden–Julian oscillation and cold surges play some roles in the weakening of the free-tropospheric wind. The migration speed is estimated at 2–3 m s−1, which is lower than that observed in another field campaign conducted in 2015 (Pre-YMC 2015). This difference is partly due to the difference in the environmental wind in the lower to midtroposphere.

This study examines the variability in surface meteorological parameters and air-sea heat fluxes due to cold pools emanating from cumulus convective systems observed over the tropical Indian Ocean in November 2011. In particular, this study focuses on convective systems that are spatially smaller than mesoscale convective systems in a southeasterly trade wind environment. Composite analyses of convectively active periods show an increase in the sensible heat flux by 15-20 W m À2 that is primarily attributed to an increase in the difference between the surface air temperature and sea surface temperature and an increase in the latent heat flux by 30-70 W m À2 due to enhanced surface wind speeds. A succession of convectively active periods leads to a greater influence than those occurring independently. The direction of the surface wind velocity anomaly due to cold pools tends to be close to that of the environmental wind velocity, resulting in an efficient enhancement of wind speed. This study also demonstrates the close relation between cold pool intensities and convective activity. In particular, two measures of cold pool intensity, a minimum surface air temperature and a maximum amount of surface wind speed enhancement, are correlated with each other and with the convective activity around the observation point measured by radar-estimated rainfall and radar echo coverage.

This study examines the global warming impact on tropical cyclone (TC) genesis frequency over the western North Pacific basin (0 -40 N, 100 E-180 ; WNP) projected by five atmosphere-ocean coupled general circulation models that participate in the World Climate Research Programme's Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3), and exhibit high performances in simulating horizontal distribution of annual-mean frequency under the current climate condition. TC-like disturbances are detected and counted in simulations for the 20th-century climate experiment and global warming experiments.It is revealed that all of the five models project an increasing trend of the frequency in the eastern part of the analysis domain, especially over the central North Pacific (5 -20 N, 150 E-180 ; CNP), and a decreasing trend in the western part, with a maximum decrease over the South China Sea (10 -25 N, 110 -120 E; SCS). The former increasing trend can be interpreted by analogy with interannual variability related to El Niñ o and Southern Oscillation (ENSO). This is because projected changes of sea surface temperature and large-scale circulation field exhibit an El Niñ o-like pattern, and on the other hand, more TCs are observed in the CNP during the El Niño phases. Relative vorticity in the lower troposphere and vertical wind shear would become more favorable for TC genesis, as in El Niñ o situation. The authors conclude that these two dynamic factors are major contributors to the projected increase of the frequency in the CNP. Over the SCS, projected environmental conditions are diagnosed as more favorable for TC genesis than the current ones, in spite of the decrease projection of the frequency. The authors discuss that the projected decrease may be associated with a projected weakening of the activity of tropical depression-type disturbance that can later be developed into TC.