Atmospheric vapor pressure deficit (VPD) is a critical variable in determining plant photosynthesis. Synthesis of four global climate datasets reveals a sharp increase of VPD after the late 1990s. In response, the vegetation greening trend indicated by a satellite-derived vegetation index (GIMMS3g), which was evident before the late 1990s, was subsequently stalled or reversed. Terrestrial gross primary production derived from two satellite-based models (revised EC-LUE and MODIS) exhibits persistent and widespread decreases after the late 1990s due to increased VPD, which offset the positive CO2 fertilization effect. Six Earth system models have consistently projected continuous increases of VPD throughout the current century. Our results highlight that the impacts of VPD on vegetation growth should be adequately considered to assess ecosystem responses to future climate conditions.

The complex features of rainfall diurnal cycles at the south China coast are examined using hourly rain gauge data and satellite products (CMORPH and TRMM 3B42) during 1998–2014. It is shown that morning rainfall is pronounced near the coasts and windward mountains, with high rainfall in the summer monsoon season, while afternoon rainfall is dominant on land, and nocturnal rainfall occurs at northern inland sites. Both satellite products report less morning rainfall and more afternoon rainfall than the rain gauge data, and they also miss the midnight rainfall minimum. These errors are mainly attributable to an underestimation of morning moderate and intense rains at coasts and an overestimation of afternoon–evening light rains on land. With a correction of the systematic bias, satellite products faithfully resolve the spatial patterns of normalized rainfall diurnal cycles related to land–sea contrast and terrains, suggesting an improved data application for regional climate studies. In particular, they are comparable to the rain gauge data in showing the linear reduction of morning rainfall from coasts to inland regions. TRMM is marginally better than CMORPH in revealing the overall features of diurnal cycles, while higher-resolution CMORPH captures more local details. All three datasets also present that morning rainfall decreases from May–June to July–August, especially on land; it exhibits pronounced interannual variations and a decadal increase in 1998–2008 at coasts. Such long-term variations of morning rainfall are induced by the coastal convergence and mountain liftings of monsoon shear flow interacting with land breeze, which is mainly regulated by monsoon southwesterly winds in the northern part of the South China Sea.

Four recent reanalyses—the 55-yr Japanese Reanalysis Project (JRA-55), Interim ECWMF Re-Analysis (ERA-I), NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), and NASA Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA)—are assessed to clarify their quality in representing the diurnal cycle over East Asia. They are found to present similar patterns/structure and summer progress of the mean wind diurnal cycle, whereas they exhibit some differences in diurnal amplitude, particularly for the low-level meridional wind. An evaluation with intense soundings suggests that the amplitude difference mainly results from the diurnal variation of mean bias that differs among reanalyses. The root-mean-square (RMS) error is found to have a diurnal variation more evident in CFSR and MERRA than that in JRA-55 and ERA-I, which strongly affects the representation of the varying diurnal amplitude at the peak hours of RMS error. Compared with satellite-derived rainfall, the four reanalyses are shown to reproduce well the rainfall diurnal cycle over East Asia in terms of large-scale terrain contrast, summer progress, and interannual variability. JRA-55 even presents a long-term increase of morning rainfall percentage over the east China plain over the past four decades, consistent with rain gauge observations. The four reanalyses exhibit some considerable discrepancies at regional scale; JRA-55 gives the best capture of the rainfall diurnal cycle over the Tibetan Plateau and the eastward propagation to the eastern lees. These results suggest that new reanalyses are potentially applicable for studying the large-scale diurnal variability over East Asia, whereas their different preferences, especially at regional scale, should be of concern in data application.

[1] Using the satellite data, spatial patterns of precipitation diurnal cycles and their seasonality were examined with emphasis on southeastern China (SEC). Results show that spatial distributions of diurnal cycles over SEC have a robust large-scale seasonality in which the regional differences are evidently embedded. Rainfall diurnal variability is weak in spring but it becomes more pronounced from presummer. Both the mean rain rates and amplitudes of diurnal cycles experience remarkable amplification during presummer. The widespread and strong morning rainfall dominates the SEC area, especially inland valleys and plains, and offshore areas. The morning peak rainfall over western SEC is largely contributed by the increasing rain frequency and diurnally varying intense rain rates. Even over eastern SEC, morning rainfall still has a comparable magnitude to afternoon rainfall. In contrast, spatial distributions of diurnal cycles in midsummer are dependent primarily on topography. The morning (afternoon) rainfall is mainly located over valleys, basins, and oceans (plateaus and mountains). The afternoon peak rainfall becomes a notable feature over southern China. The signature of widespread morning rainfall decays during midsummer and remains apparent only in central eastern China, which is likely related to the north shift of summer rainband.

Heavy rainfall that occurred at the south coast of China on 10–11 May 2014 was associated with a synoptic-system-related low-level jet (SLLJ) and a boundary layer jet (BLJ). To clarify the role of the double low-level jets in convection initiation (CI), we perform convective-permitting simulations using a nonhydrostatic mesoscale model. The simulations reproduce the occurrence location and mesoscale evolution of new convective cells as well as their small-scale wavelike structures at the elevated layers, which are generally consistent with radar observations despite some differences in their orientation. The nighttime BLJ over the northern South China Sea strengthens the convergence at ~950 hPa near the coast where the BLJ’s northern terminus reaches the coastal terrain. Meanwhile, the SLLJ to the south of the inland cold front provides divergence at ~700 hPa near the SLLJ’s entrance region. Such low-level convergence and midlevel divergence collectively produce strong mesoscale lifting for CI at the coast. In addition to the enhanced mesoscale lifting, the double low-level jets also provide favorable conditions for the superimposed small-scale disturbances that can serve as effective moistening mechanisms of the lower troposphere during CI. In a sensitivity experiment with coastal terrain removed, CI still occurs near the coast but is delayed and weaker compared to the control run. This latter experiment suggests that double low-level jets and their coupling indeed exert key effects on CI, while the BLJ colliding with terrain may enhance coastal convergence for amplifying CI. These findings provide new insights into the occurrence of coastal heavy rainfall in the warm sector far ahead of the fronts.

Heavy rainfall occurred at both the inland frontal zone and coastal warm sector in southern China during 10–11 May 2014, which is a typical pattern in the early-summer rainy season. To clarify the key factors controlling the rainfall, we conduct an ensemble-based analysis using the operational global ensemble forecasts from ECMWF. The forecasts of frontal (warm sector) rainfall have a relatively small (large) spread and a small (large) bias of ensemble-mean amount, suggesting an obvious difference in the predictability. It is shown that double low-level jets (LLJs) in the southwesterly moist flow play a significant role in the heavy rainfall over southern China. The inland frontal rainband is closely related to the synoptic-system-related low-level jet (SLLJ) with maximum wind speed at 850–700 hPa, especially for its meridional wind component. The more intense cold front is accompanied by the stronger southwesterly SLLJ on the adjacent south side, favoring more precipitation near the front. The warm-sector heavy rainfall, a few hundred kilometers away from the front, is associated with the boundary layer jet (BLJ) at 925 hPa. The southerly BLJ occurs over the northern region of the South China Sea and reaches its maximum wind speed in the early morning. The variations of the BLJ are mainly induced by the surface low and related upper-level short-wave trough upstream. The large pressure gradient to the southeast of the surface low can accelerate the BLJ by increasing the geostrophic winds. The diurnal cycle of the low-level winds, seen in the climatology, also contributes in part to the development of the BLJ at night.

Moist convection occurred repeatedly in the midnight-to-morning hours of 11–16 June 1998 and yielded excessive rainfall in a narrow latitudinal corridor over East Asia, causing severe flood. Numerical experiments and composite analyses of a 5-day period are performed to examine the mechanisms governing nocturnal convection. Both simulations and observations show that a train of MCSs concurrently developed along a quasi-stationary mei-yu front and coincided with the impact of a monsoon surge on a frontogenetic zone at night. This process was regulated primarily by a nocturnal low-level jet (NLLJ) in the southwesterly monsoon that formed over southern China and extended to central China. In particular, the NLLJ acted as a mechanism of moisture transport over the plains. At its northern terminus, the NLLJ led to a zonal band of elevated conditionally unstable air where strong low-level ascent overcame small convective inhibition, triggering new convection in three preferred plains. An analysis of convective instability shows that the low-tropospheric intrusion of moist monsoon air generated CAPE of ~1000 J kg−1 prior to convection initiation, whereas free-atmospheric forcing was much weaker. The NLLJ-related horizontal advection accounted for most of the instability precondition at 100–175 J kg−1 h−1. At the convective stage, instability generation by the upward transport of moisture increased to ~100 J kg−1 h−1, suggesting that ascending inflow caused feedback in convection growth. The convection dissipated in late morning with decaying NLLJ and moisture at elevated layers. It is concluded that the diurnally varying summer monsoon acted as an effective discharge of available moist energy from southern to central China, generating the morning-peak heavy rainfall corridor.

Low-level jets (LLJs) are a key factor regulating the early-summer rainfall over southern China. Their detailed activities and impact are examined using 21-yr ERA5 and TRMM rainfall data. The LLJs typically consist of boundary layer jets (BLJs) and synoptic-system-related LLJs (SLLJs). The BLJ is usually characterized by a southerly wind maximum at 950 hPa over the northern area of South China Sea, whereas the SLLJ features a southwesterly wind maximum at 850–700 hPa located more north on land. Meanwhile, the BLJ (SLLJ) has a maximum occurrence in April–June (May–July) and at late night (in the early morning), indicating the differences in seasonal and diurnal variations. The two types of LLJs are found to influence the rainfall distribution via terrain effects, synoptic disturbances, and moisture transport. During the BLJ events, rainfall is mainly confined to the south side of the Nanling and Wuyi Mountains and Yun-Gui Plateau (south region), whereas during the SLLJ events rainfall occurs both in the coastal region and to the north of the mountains (north region). The difference is caused by the southerly BLJ that induces strong orographic lifting on the windward side of the mountains, while the elevated SLLJ can pass over the mountains driving an additional upward motion more north. Active synoptic disturbances accompanied by SLLJs are also favorable for the rainfall in the north region. The moisture transportation by LLJs is another important factor regulating rainfall distribution. Rainfall in the south (north) region is mainly attributed to the net moisture flux in the boundary layer (more elevated layers) due to the BLJ (SLLJ).