Physical processes associated with onset of the 1998 Asian summer monsoon were examined in detail using multi-source datasets. We demonstrated that strong ocean-atmosphere-land interaction in the northern Indian Ocean and tropical Asian area during spring is a fundamental factor that induces the genesis and development of a monsoon onset vortex over the Bay of Bengal (BOB), with the vortex in turn triggering onset of the Asian summer monsoon. In spring, strong surface sensible heating over India and the Indochina Peninsula is transferred to the atmosphere, forming prominent in situ cyclonic circulation, with anticyclonic circulations over the Arabian Sea and northern BOB where the ocean receives abundant solar radiation. The corresponding surface winds along the North Indian Ocean coastal areas cause the ocean to produce the in situ offshore currents and upwelling, resulting in sea surface temperature (SST) cooling. With precipitation on the Indochina Peninsula increasing from late April to early May, the offshore current disappears in the eastern BOB or develops into an onshore current, leading to SST increasing. A southwest-northeast oriented spring BOB warm pool with SST >31°C forms in a band from the southeastern Arabian Sea to the eastern BOB. In early May, the Somali cross-equatorial flow forms due to the meridional SST gradient between the two hemispheres, and surface sensible heat over the African land surface. The Somali flow overlaps in phase with the anticyclone over the northern Arabian Sea in the course of its inertial fluctuation along the equator. The convergent cold northerlies on the eastern side of the anticyclone cause the westerly in the inertial trough to increase rapidly, so that enhanced sensible heat is released from the sea surface into the atmosphere. The cyclonic vorticity forced by such sensible heating is superimposed on the inertial trough, leading to its further increase in vorticity strength. Since atmospheric inertial motion is destroyed, the flow deviates from the inertial track
The interannual variability of wintertime snow depth over the Tibetan Plateau(TP) and related atmospheric circulation anomalies were investigated based on observed snow depth measurements and NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data.Empirical orthogonal function(EOF) analysis was applied to identify the spatio-temporal variability of wintertime TP snow depth.Snow depth anomalies were dominated by a monopole pattern over the TP and a dipole structure with opposite anomalies over the southeastern and northwestern TP.The atmospheric circulation conditions responsible for the interannual variability of TP snow depth were examined via regression analyses against the principal component of the most dominant EOF mode.In the upper troposphere,negative zonal wind anomalies over the TP with extensively positive anomalies to the south indicated that the southwestward shift of the westerly jet may favor the development of surface cyclones over the TP.An anomalous cyclone centered over the southeastern TP was associated with the anomalous westerly jet,which is conducive to heavier snowfall and results in positive snow depth anomalies.An anomalous cyclone was observed at 500 hPa over the TP,with an anomalous anticyclone immediately to the north,suggesting that the TP is frequently affected by surface cyclones.Regression analyses revealed that significant negative thickness anomalies exist around the TP from March to May,with a meridional dipole anomaly in March.The persistent negative anomalies due to more winter TP snow are not conducive to earlier reversal of the meridional temperature gradient,leading to a possible delay in the onset of the Asian summer monsoon.
Simulated outgoing longwave radiation(OLR) outputs by two versions of the grid-point atmospheric general circulation model(GAMIL) were analyzed to assess the influences of improvements in cloud microphysics and convective parameterization schemes on the simulation of the Madden-Julian oscillation(MJO) and other tropical waves.The wavenumber-frequency spectral analysis was applied to isolate dominant modes of convectively coupled equatorial waves,including the MJO,Kelvin,equatorial Rossby(ER),mixed Rossby-gravity(MRG),and inertio-gravity(IG) waves.The performances of different versions of the GAMIL model(version 1.0(GAMIL1.0) and version 2.0(GAMIL2.0)) were evaluated by comparing the power spectrum distributions of these waves among GAMIL1.0,GAMIL2.0,and observational data.GAMIL1.0 shows a weak MJO signal,with the maximum variability occurring separately at wavenumbers 1 and 4 rather than being concentrated on wavenumbers 1-3,suggesting that GAMIL1.0 could not effectively capture the intraseasonal variability.However,GAMIL2.0 is able to effectively reproduce both the symmetric and anti-symmetric waves,and the significant spectra of the MJO,Kelvin,and MRG waves are in agreement with observational data,indicating that the ability of GAMIL2.0 to simulate the MJO and other tropical waves is enhanced by improving the cloud microphysics and convective parameterization schemes and implying that such improvements are crucial to further improving this model's performance.
Based on 6-hourly sensible heat flux and latent heat flux from the NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis(CFSR) and circulation data from the Japanese 25-year Reanalysis(JRA-25),the initial developing process of tropical cyclone Mindulle(1005) in 2010 has been diagnosed to reveal the impact of air-sea interaction over the South China Sea(SCS) on the genesis of its incipient vortex.The results show that the incipient vortex first occurred east of the Luzon Island on 0000 UTC 20 August,suggesting that the topographic forcing of the Luzon Island for easterly winds over the western Pacific might be one of the factors responsible for the formation of the incipient vortex.During the formation stage of the incipient vortex,strong southeasterlies over the SCS caused warm water of the middle and eastern SCS to flow toward the Luzon Island due to Ekman transport resulting from wind stress,leading to an increase of the sea surface temperature and sensible heat flux into the atmosphere.Although the anomalous sensible heating favored surface pressure to reduce,it was not conducive to the increase of local vorticity associated with the vortex above the heating area because,according to the atmospheric thermal adaptation theory,the anticyclonic vorticity would be created in the lower troposphere due to the decreased vertical gradient of the sensible heating.However,the ascending motions occurred over the eastern area of the anomalous sensible heating due to the augmentation of the vorticity advection with increasing height,causing water vapor to condense in the middle and upper troposphere.In turn,cyclonic vorticity was generated in the lower troposphere due to the increased vertical gradient of the condensation latent heating,resulting in the formation and further growth of the incipient vortex.Therefore,the vorticity creation due to the condensation heating played a dominant role during the subsequent enhancing stage of the incipient vortex.
This study reveals the barotropic dynamics associated with the formation and growth of tropical cyclone Nargis in 2008,during its formation stage.Strong equatorial westerlies occurred over the southern Bay of Bengal in association with the arrival of an intraseasonal westerly event during the period 22-24 April 2008. The westerlies,together with strong tropical-subtropical easterlies,constituted a large-scale horizontal shear flow,creating cyclonic vorticity and thereby promoting the incipient disturbance that eventually evolved into Nargis.This basic zonal flow in the lower troposphere was barotropically unstable,with the amplified disturbance gaining more kinetic energy from the easterly jet than from the westerly jet during 25-26 April. This finding suggests that more attention should be paid to the unstable easterly jet when monitoring and predicting the development of tropical cyclones.Energetics analyses reveal that barotropic energy conversion by the meridional gradient of the basic zonal flow was indeed an important energy source for the growth of Nargis.
