Changes of the transitional climate zone in East Asia: past and future

Wang, Lin; Chen, Wen; Huang, Gang; Zeng, Gang

doi:10.1007/s00382-016-3400-4

Cited by 75 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Wang et al . [] examined the spatial and temporal variations of the TCZ in East Asia using observational data and model simulations. Results indicated that the TCZ edges shifted southeastward from 1961 to 2014 because of increasing aridity.…”

Section: Dryland Distribution and Measures Of Ariditymentioning

confidence: 99%

Dryland climate change: Recent progress and challenges

Huang

et al. 2017

Reviews of Geophysics

591

331

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Drylands are home to more than 38% of the world's population and are one of the most sensitive areas to climate change and human activities. This review describes recent progress in dryland climate change research. Recent findings indicate that the long‐term trend of the aridity index (AI) is mainly attributable to increased greenhouse gas emissions, while anthropogenic aerosols exert small effects but alter its attributions. Atmosphere‐land interactions determine the intensity of regional response. The largest warming during the last 100 years was observed over drylands and accounted for more than half of the continental warming. The global pattern and interdecadal variability of aridity changes are modulated by oceanic oscillations. The different phases of those oceanic oscillations induce significant changes in land‐sea and north‐south thermal contrasts, which affect the intensity of the westerlies and planetary waves and the blocking frequency, thereby altering global changes in temperature and precipitation. During 1948–2008, the drylands in the Americas became wetter due to enhanced westerlies, whereas the drylands in the Eastern Hemisphere became drier because of the weakened East Asian summer monsoon. Drylands as defined by the AI have expanded over the last 60 years and are projected to expand in the 21st century. The largest expansion of drylands has occurred in semiarid regions since the early 1960s. Dryland expansion will lead to reduced carbon sequestration and enhanced regional warming. The increasing aridity, enhanced warming, and rapidly growing population will exacerbate the risk of land degradation and desertification in the near future in developing countries.

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Section: Dryland Distribution and Measures Of Ariditymentioning

confidence: 99%

Dryland climate change: Recent progress and challenges

Huang

et al. 2017

Reviews of Geophysics

591

331

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“…Our results showed an arid trend in Asia in a warmer future. Upon examining the arid/humid region switch, previous studies pointed out that the boundaries of the East Asian climate transition zone would expand in both directions (Wang et al, 2017). The subtropical humid region in Southeast China showed a contraction, and the semi-arid and sub-humid regions in northern China showed a southeast expansion by the end of this century (Chan and Wu 2015;Li and Ma 2013;Huang et al 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The trends they gave are similar to the trends in this study, but the values are slightly different. The possible reasons for the differences include (1) different regions of analysis (the East Asia for Wang et al (2017), the China for Li and Ma (2013), the Asia in this study, and the larger regions for Chan and Wu (2015) and Huang et al (2017)), and (2) different emission scenarios (the 2°C warming scenario for Huang et al (2017), the RCP 4.5 and 8.5 for Wang et al (2017), the historical scenario for Chan and Wu (2015), and the national-committed emission scenarios in this study). The differences in emission scenarios are potentially more important.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Arid/humid patterns over Asia in response to national-committed emission reductions under the Paris agreement

Wang

Zhang

2020

Prog Earth Planet Sci

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The evolution of regional arid/humid patterns caused by global climate change deserves attention. We investigated the changes in the area of arid/humid climate regions over Asia under the aegis of national-committed emission reductions to comply with the Paris Agreement using an ensemble of 17 global climate models (GCMs) from the Fifth Coupled Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) archives. Our results indicated an overall trend towards aridity in a future warmer climate based on an aridity index (AI), defined as the ratio of precipitation to potential evapotranspiration (PET). In the future, the humid region will contract and the arid region and arid/humid transition zones will expand. Compared with the present period, arid/humid region switch is projected to occur in a land area of 2512.8 × 10 3 km 2 over Asia under the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC)-pledge scenario. If global warming is controlled to the ambitious 2.0°C and 1.5°C scenarios instead of that of the INDCpledge scenario, a decrease in the changes in the area of arid/humid regions by more than half would be expected. In addition, the arid/humid regions with continuous global warming are estimated to contract/expand greatly. Changes in the spatial pattern of the arid/humid zones over Asia show strong similarities between multimodel simulations, although there are some differences in detail.

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“…Monsoon transitional zone (MTZ) is the transitional belt between humid and arid regions (e.g., Qian et al ., ; Wang et al ., ). The MTZ in China is featured by a northeast–southwest‐oriented pattern covering more than eight provinces, including Hebei, Gansu, Shanxi, Qinghai, etc.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Inter‐annual variations of precipitation over the monsoon transitional zone in China during August–September: Role of sea surface temperature anomalies over the tropical Pacific and North Atlantic

Zhao

Chen

et al. 2018

Atmospheric Science Letters

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The present study investigates inter-annual variations of precipitation during transitional periods (August-September) of the rainy season over the monsoon transitional zone (MTZ) in China. More precipitation tends to occur over the MTZ during August-September when a significant anticyclonic anomaly simultaneously appears over the western North Pacific (WNP). Prominent southerly wind anomalies induced by the anticyclonic anomaly over the WNP contribute to more precipitation over the MTZ via transporting abundant water vapor northward. Sea surface temperature (SST) cooling in the tropical central-eastern Pacific and SST warming in the northern tropical Atlantic (NTA) are crucial to the formation of the anticyclonic anomaly over the WNP. In addition, it is showed that the significant impact of the SST warming in the NTA on the WNP anticyclonic anomaly is independent of the SST cooling in the tropical central-eastern Pacific. Atmospheric general circulation model experiments demonstrate that the SST warming over the NTA can produce an anticyclonic anomaly over the WNP via modulation of the Walker circulation with upward motion anomalies over the NTA and downward motion anomalies over the tropical central Pacific. The resultant negative precipitation anomalies over the tropical central Pacific further trigger an anticyclonic anomaly over the WNP via a Gill-type atmospheric response. The results suggest that SST anomalies in the tropical central-eastern Pacific and the NTA play a key driver for inter-annual variations of precipitation over the MTZ in China during August-September.

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Changes of the transitional climate zone in East Asia: past and future

Cited by 75 publications

References 32 publications

Dryland climate change: Recent progress and challenges

Dryland climate change: Recent progress and challenges

Arid/humid patterns over Asia in response to national-committed emission reductions under the Paris agreement

Inter‐annual variations of precipitation over the monsoon transitional zone in China during August–September: Role of sea surface temperature anomalies over the tropical Pacific and North Atlantic

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