Changes in the East Asian summer monsoon rainfall under global warming: moisture budget decompositions and the sources of uncertainty

Zhou, Shijie; Huang, Gang; Huang, Ping

doi:10.1007/s00382-017-3959-4

Cited by 52 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 40 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…To elucidate the formation mechanisms of changes in the sensitivity of rainfall response to local SST anomalies under global warming, we decompose this sensitivity change from the perspective of the moisture budget. In general, changes in the tropical rainfall are influenced by both moisture and atmospheric circulation changes, which can be estimated by a simplified moisture budget decomposition as in previous studies (Huang et al ., ; Huang, ; Zhou et al ., ):

normalΔ P \sim - \frac{1}{ρ_{w} g} ((), normalΔ ω \cdot q + ω \cdot normalΔ q)

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…where ρ w is the density of water, q and ω represent surface specific humidity and 500-hPa vertical pressure velocity in the historical run, respectively. This simplified moisture budget decomposition has been verified to be an efficient way to study rainfall change under global warming compared with others (Chou et al, 2009;Seager et al, 2010;Zhou et al, 2018). Based recent progress on the moisture budget decompositions for changes in the interannual variability of tropical rainfall (Seager et al, 2012;Chung et al, 2014), Huang and Xie (2015) gave a simplified decomposition for the interannual response of rainfall anomalies to SST as:…”

Section: Decomposition Of the Moisture Budgetmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Decomposition Of the Moisture Budgetmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…In general, changes in the tropical rainfall are influenced by both moisture and atmospheric circulation changes, which can be estimated by a simplified moisture budget decomposition as in previous studies (Huang et al ., ; Huang, ; Zhou et al ., ):

normalΔ P \sim - \frac{1}{ρ_{w} g} ((), normalΔ ω \cdot q + ω \cdot normalΔ q)

where ρ w is the density of water, q and ω represent surface specific humidity and 500‐hPa vertical pressure velocity in the historical run, respectively. This simplified moisture budget decomposition has been verified to be an efficient way to study rainfall change under global warming compared with others (Chou et al ., ; Seager et al ., ; Zhou et al ., ). Based recent progress on the moisture budget decompositions for changes in the interannual variability of tropical rainfall (Seager et al ., ; Chung et al ., ), Huang and Xie () gave a simplified decomposition for the interannual response of rainfall anomalies to SST as:

normalΔ P^{'} \sim - normalΔ q \cdot ω^{'} - q \cdot normalΔ ω^{'} - normalΔ ω \cdot q^{'} - ω \cdot normalΔ q^{'}

where the prime denotes the response to SST anomalies.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Changes in the sensitivity of tropical rainfall response to local sea surface temperature anomalies under global warming

Ying

Huang

Lian

2019

Intl Journal of Climatology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Changes in tropical rainfall variability under global warming are crucial to rainfall changes induced by tropical sea surface temperature (SST) variability modes, which exerts severe influences on human society and the natural environment. As the main factor influencing tropical rainfall variability, changes in the sensitivity of tropical rainfall response to local SST anomalies under global warming remain unclear. This study reveals its two dominant spatial features based on the multi‐model ensemble mean result from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. The sensitivity of tropical rainfall response to SST anomalies is enhanced in the equatorial central–eastern Pacific, and exhibits a positive Indian Ocean dipole‐like pattern in the Indian Ocean. A simplified moisture budget decomposition shows that such change is composed of the thermodynamic effect induced by the increase in mean‐state moisture and the dynamic effect induced by the changes in the sensitivity of atmospheric circulation response to SST anomalies. When the thermodynamic effect, displaying a ‘wet‐get‐wetter’ paradigm, is basically offset with a part of the dynamic effect by the general weakening of atmospheric circulation response to SST anomalies under global warming, changes in the sensitivity of rainfall response to SST anomalies is dominated by a residual dynamic effect that reflects the roles of two factors: the spatially non‐uniform SST warming and the climatological SST. As a result, the ‘warmer‐get‐wetter’ paradigm is more important to changes in the sensitivity of rainfall rasponse to SST anomalies than to climatological rainfall changes. Moreover, the non‐uniform SST warming pattern and the climatological SST are also important sources of intermodel uncertainty in the changes of sensitivity of rainfall rasponse to SST anomalies.

show abstract

normalΔ P \sim - \frac{1}{ρ_{w} g} ((), normalΔ ω \cdot q + ω \cdot normalΔ q)

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Decomposition Of the Moisture Budgetmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Decomposition Of the Moisture Budgetmentioning

confidence: 94%

normalΔ P \sim - \frac{1}{ρ_{w} g} ((), normalΔ ω \cdot q + ω \cdot normalΔ q)

normalΔ P^{'} \sim - normalΔ q \cdot ω^{'} - q \cdot normalΔ ω^{'} - normalΔ ω \cdot q^{'} - ω \cdot normalΔ q^{'}

where the prime denotes the response to SST anomalies.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Changes in the sensitivity of tropical rainfall response to local sea surface temperature anomalies under global warming

Ying

Huang

Lian

2019

Intl Journal of Climatology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Previous studies also reported considerable uncertainty in projected precipitation changes on regional scales, especially over East China (Trenberth et al 2003, Turner and Annamalai 2012, Ma and Xie 2013, Zhou et al 2017, Wang et al 2018. As demonstrated by Zhou et al (2017), 9 in 18 CMIP5 models projected an increase of precipitation over south-eastern China and the other half simulated a decrease in precipitation over this region. This uncertainty is mainly related to the tropical mean warming and the spatial deviations of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) warming from the tropical mean (Xie et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Projected near term changes in the East Asian summer monsoon and its uncertainty

Tian

Dong

Robson

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Changes in the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) during the mid-21st century relative to present day are simulated in two related models GOML1 and GOML2. Both models are the atmospheric components of two state-of-the-art climate models coupled to a multi-level mixed-layer ocean model, following the RCP 4.5 scenario. Both show that the EASM is enhanced due to the amplified land-sea thermal contrast. Summer precipitation over northern China is projected to increase by 5%-10% in both models mainly driven by enhancement of the monsoon circulation. Over south-eastern China the two models project different signs of precipitation change: a decrease in GOML1 with the maximum of about −1.0 mm d −1 and an increase in GOML2 with a maximum of around 1.0 mm d −1 . Though the thermal effect of climate warming leads to a projected increase in precipitation over south-eastern China in both models, circulation changes are opposite and dominate the precipitation response. This indicates that uncertainty in changes in projected precipitation largely arises from uncertainly in projected circulation changes. The different circulation changes in the two models are likely related to differences in projected Sea Surface Temperature (SST) in the Western tropical Pacific and North Pacific. In GOML1, the SST warming in the tropical Pacific is associated with an anomalous local Hadley circulation, characterized by anomalous ascent in the tropics and southern subtropics, and anomalous descent with less precipitation over southeastern China. In GOML2, the large decrease in the meridional SST gradient between the South China Sea and Western North Pacific is associated with an anomalous local Hadley circulation with anomalous ascent at 20°N-30°N and anomalous descent at 5°N-15°N, leading to an anti-cyclonic circulation anomaly over the South China Sea and increased precipitation over south-eastern China.

show abstract

East Asian summer rainfall projection and uncertainty under a global warming scenario

Liu

2020

Intl Journal of Climatology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This work investigated the simulation and future changes in East Asian summer mean rainfall, interannual variability, and associated uncertainty based on the historical and representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5 runs of 26 CMIP5 models. It is noted that the present‐day mean rainfall was well simulated by most of the models, though underestimation is over the Meiyu/Baiu/Changma (MBC) rainfall belt, and overestimation is in the western North Pacific (WNP). Nevertheless, it is still a challenge for the CMIP5 models to well simulate the interannual variability. The approach of the multi‐model ensemble greatly improves the credibility of model simulations, especially for the rainfall variability. The East Asian summer rainfall is projected to a relatively consistent increase in the near future, while the spatial distributions of the summer rainfall changes by the end of the 21st century are similar to those in the near future, with twice magnitude of the mean rainfall amount increase. The rainfall changes are associated with the strengthened low‐level southerly wind over East China and intensified western North Pacific high. Also, the variation of rainfall interannual variability by the end of the 21st century over East Asia is larger than that in the near future, with similar spatial patterns. It may imply that the stronger rainfall interannual variability is associated with the increased mean rainfall amount in the future. The inter‐model spreads of both the mean and interannual variability changes are larger in the low latitudes than in the high latitudes over East Asia. The signal‐noise‐ratio (SNR) is largely determined by the rainfall change (signal) in the future. Lower SNR of interannual variability than that of mean rainfall over East Asia implies that the CMIP5 models are more robust to a certain extent in simulating the summer mean rainfall change in East Asia than the change of interannual variability.

show abstract

Changes in the East Asian summer monsoon rainfall under global warming: moisture budget decompositions and the sources of uncertainty

Cited by 52 publications

References 40 publications

Changes in the sensitivity of tropical rainfall response to local sea surface temperature anomalies under global warming

Changes in the sensitivity of tropical rainfall response to local sea surface temperature anomalies under global warming

Projected near term changes in the East Asian summer monsoon and its uncertainty

East Asian summer rainfall projection and uncertainty under a global warming scenario

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About