Based on the reanalysis data throughout 1948―2002 as derived from the United States National Centers for Environmental Prediction and National Center for Atmos-pheric Research, it is revealed that East Asian summer mon-soon (EASM) intensity weakens on an interdecadal timescale since the mid-1960s, and twice interdecadal jumps are re-corded in the EASM intensity index series in the late 20th century, respectively occurring in the mid-1960s and mid- to late 1970s. Six globally coupled atmosphere-ocean models’ outputs under the SRES A2 greenhouse gas and aerosol emission scenario, provided by the IPCC Data Distribution Center and the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research, are then systematically examined. It follows that the above EASM weakening is not closely related to synchro-nizing anthropogenic global warming, and, therefore, it should be qualitatively natural change process. Over the 21st century, the EASM intensity is likely increased slightly by continually intensified greenhouse effect relative to the late 20th century.
Monthly data of Self-Calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) from 1951 to 2000 are calculated using historical precipitation and temperature data for Chinese 160 stations. Temporal and spatial pat-terns of the first empirical orthogonal function (EOF) of the PDSI reveals a fairly linear trend resulting from trends in precipitation and surface temperature, which is similar to the linear PDSI trend during 1951―2000 calculated using all monthly data. The EOF analysis also reveals that the leading mode correlates significantly with ENSO events in time and space. The ENSO EOF shows that during the typical warm phase of ENSO, surface conditions are drier in most regions of China, especially North China, but wetter than normal in the southern regions of Changjiang River, and Northwest China. During the typical cold phase of ENSO, these anomalies reverse sign. From 1951 to 2000, there are large multi-year to decadal variations in droughts and wet spells over China, which are all closely related to strong El Nio events. In other words, when one strong El Nio event happens, there is a possible big variability in droughts and wet spells over China on the multi-year or decadal scale. Studies also sug-gest that during the last 2―3 decades climate changes over China, especially North China's drying and northwest China's wetting, are closely related to the shift in ENSO towards warmer events and global warming since the late 1970s. The instability of the relationship is also studied. It is revealed that there is a good correlation between ENSO and Chinese variations in droughts and wet spells in the 3―8-year band, but the correlation between ENSO and Chinese variations in droughts and wet spells is instable. Studies suggest that there are decadal changes in the correlation: the wavelet coherency between ENSO and Chinese variations in droughts and wet spells is high during 1951―1962 and 1976―1991, but low during 1963―1975 and 1992―2000.
SU MingFeng1,2 & WANG HuiJun1 1 Nansen-Zhu International Research Center, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
The interannual variability of Antarctic Oscillation (AAO) and its influence on East Asian climate during both boreal winter and spring are addressed. The results show that the positive AAO anomaly decreases the cold activity over East Asia during both boreal winter and spring. AAO-related barotropic meridional teleconnection from Antarctic to Arctic is found through analysis of mean me- ridional circulations. This meridional teleconnection is remarkable over Eurasia during boreal winter and over the Pacific Ocean during boreal spring. The results also show that zonal mean zonal wind at high latitudes in Southern Hemisphere has well positive correlation with that of Eurasia during boreal winter and has negative correlation with Pacific North American teleconnection (PNA) during boreal spring, which again display the meridional teleconnection. Thus, local meridional teleconnection is a possible linkage for interaction of circulations at mid-high latitudes between both hemispheres.
FAN Ke1,2,3 & WANG Huijun2 1. Nansen-Zhu International Research Center, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
In this paper, the temporal variation characteristics of the dust storm in North China are investigated. Based on power spectrum analysis and wavelet analysis, 1956-1970 and 1985-1999 are chosen as the high-frequency and low-frequency dust storm decades respectively. Analysis results clearly show that the spring and wintertime anomalous atmospheric circulation between these two dec-ades are significantly different. Compared with the former decade, there are a strengthened polar vortex, enhanced westerlies near 50°N, and a weak East Asian major though in the winter of the latter decade. The north and center parts of the Siberian high and the Aleutian low become weak. The southerly and easterly wind anomalies appear over the north and east parts of China, which implies the weakening of East Asian winter monsoon. Meanwhile, northern China experiences warmer winters and wetter springs, which are in favor of the weakening of dust storm intensity in North China. There are significant out-of-phase relationships between dust frequency and wintertime westerly intensity, as well as between dust frequency and Arctic Oscillation. It is also found that the frequency of dust weather is strongly re-lated to winter-springtime East Asian monsoon intensity.
KANG Dujuan1,2 & WANG Huijun1 1. NZC/LASG, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100871, China
