Seasonal Heating of the Tibetan Plateau and Its Effects on the Evolution of the Asian Summer Monsoon

Yanai, Michio; Li, Chengfeng; Zhengshan, Song

doi:10.2151/jmsj1965.70.1b_319

Cited by 860 publications

(642 citation statements)

References 101 publications

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“…Rather the monsoon begins abruptly in a period as short as two weeks, as measured not only by precipitation [e.g., Soman, 1988, 1989;Joseph et al, 2006;Pai and Nair, 2009;Soman and Krishna Kumar, 1993], but also by reversals in both low-level winds [e.g., Boos and Emanuel, 2009;Fieux and Stommel, 1977;Halpern and Woiceshyn, 1999;Krishnamurti et al, 1981] and upper troposphere circulation [e.g., He et al, 1987He et al, , 2003Li and Yanai, 1996;Wu and Zhang, 1998;Yanai and Wu, 2006;Yanai et al, 1992]. Moreover, Goswami et al [1999] showed that the reversal in winds aloft correlates with onsets of monsoons defined by various rainfall indices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signatures of Tibetan Plateau heating on Indian summer monsoon rainfall variability

Rajagopalan

Molnár

2013

JGR Atmospheres

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[1] Despite recent challenges, conventional wisdom has held that heating over the Tibetan Plateau leads to increased Indian summer monsoon rainfall via enhancement of cross-equatorial circulation aloft, and a concurrent strengthening of both the Somali Jet and westerly winds that bring moisture to southern India. We show that such heating, quantified by monthly estimates of moist static energy in the atmosphere just above the surface, correlates with summer monsoon rainfall, but only in the early (20 May to 15 June) and late (September 1 to 15 October) monsoon season. Correlations during the main monsoon season (15 June to 31 August) are small and insignificant. The positive correlations with early and late monsoon season, however, allow for heating over Tibet to modulate as much as 30% of the total rainfall. Furthermore, we demonstrate that heating over Tibet is independent of the El Niño Southern Oscillation, so that together they explain a substantial portion of variability in the early and late season rainfall, providing potential predictability. These links may also explain the wet conditions over India during early Holocene time and provide a quantitative link between a rise of Tibet and stronger Somali Jet.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signatures of Tibetan Plateau heating on Indian summer monsoon rainfall variability

Rajagopalan

Molnár

2013

JGR Atmospheres

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“…[4] The Tibetan Plateau (TP), with an average elevation of over 4000 m above sea level (asl), is the highest and largest highland in the world and exerts a great influence on regional and global climate through its thermal forcing mechanisms [Duan and Wu, 2005;Yanai et al, 1992;Yeh and Gao, 1979]. Previous studies [Duan and Wu, 2006;Kang et al, 2007;Lin and Zhao, 1996; X.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in daily climate extremes in the eastern and central Tibetan Plateau during 1961–2005

et al. 2008

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[1] Changes in indices of climate extremes are analyzed on the basis of daily maximum and minimum surface air temperature and precipitation at 71 meteorological stations with elevation above 2000 m above sea level in the eastern and central Tibetan Plateau (TP) during . Twelve indices of extreme temperature and nine indices of extreme precipitation are examined. Temperature extremes show patterns consistent with warming during the studied period, with a large proportion of stations showing statistically significant trends for all temperature indices. Stations in the northwestern, southwestern, and southeastern TP have larger trend magnitudes. The regional occurrence of extreme cold days and nights has decreased by À0.85 and À2.38 d/decade, respectively. Over the same period, the occurrence of extreme warm days and nights has increased by 1.26 and 2.54 d/decade, respectively. The number of frost days and ice days shows statistically significant decreasing at the rate of À4.32 and À2.46 d/decade, respectively. The length of growing season has statistically increased by 4.25 d/decade. The diurnal temperature range exhibits a statistically decreasing trend at a rate of À0.20°C per decade. The extreme temperature indices also show statistically significant increasing trends, with larger values for the index describing variations in the lowest minimum temperature. In general, warming trends in minimum temperature indices are of greater magnitude than those for maximum temperature. Most precipitation indices exhibit increasing trends in the southern and northern TP and show decreasing trends in the central TP. On average, regional annual total precipitation, heavy precipitation days, maximum 1-day precipitation, average wet days precipitation, and total precipitation on extreme wet days show nonsignificant increases. Decreasing trends are found for maximum 5-day precipitation, consecutive wet days, and consecutive dry days, but only the last is statistically significant.

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“…Many studies have suggested that the seasonal variability of the Tibetan heating and the consequent anomalies of temperature may trigger a change of large-scale atmospheric circulation, leading to the seasonal variations of the monsoons and associated rainfall over South Asia and East Asia (Yanai et al, 1992;Li and Yanai, 1996;Webster et al, 1998;Zhao and Chen, 2001a, b;He et al, 2008). Wu et al (2002) emphasized an important role of Tibetan heating on the evolution of atmospheric circulation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inter‐decadal variability of Tibetan spring vegetation and its associations with eastern China spring rainfall

Wang

Zhao²,

et al. 2009

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index of NOAA/AVHRR, the European Centre for MediumRange Weather Forecast reanalysis and the Climate Prediction Center Merged Analysis of Precipitation data for the period 1982-1999, the relationship between the inter-decadal variability of spring (April-May) vegetation over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and spring rainfall over eastern China was investigated. The results show that when the vegetation over the TP increases in spring, the spring rainfall enhances to the north of the Yangtze River and reduces to the south of the river. This relationship is well supported by the feedback of vegetation to climate and the background atmospheric circulation changes.Corresponding to more vegetation over the TP in spring, the surface sensible heating increases and local air temperature at the surface and in the troposphere also increases. The air volume expands, and the divergence becomes dominant in high-level atmosphere over the TP, with an increase in the upper-tropospheric geopotential height. This indicates an upper-tropospheric intensified ridge over the TP in spring.The intensified ridge extends toward eastern China. An anomalous anti-cyclone appears over the TP and eastern China, with anomalous divergence in the upper troposphere and anomalous convergence in the lower troposphere. Meanwhile, an anomalous cyclonic circulation appears in the lower troposphere over the northern region of eastern China, accompanying with the local anomalous upward motion. Therefore, the spring rainfall enhances over these regions. To the south of the upper-tropospheric anomalous anti-cyclonic centre, however, the upper easterlies from the western North Pacific Ocean retard while reaching the southeast coasts of China. This may result in the upper-tropospheric anomalous convergence, with anomalous divergence and an anomalous anti-cyclonic circulation in the lower troposphere over southeastern China and its coasts. Consequently, the spring rainfall weakens over these regions.

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Seasonal Heating of the Tibetan Plateau and Its Effects on the Evolution of the Asian Summer Monsoon

Cited by 860 publications

References 101 publications

Signatures of Tibetan Plateau heating on Indian summer monsoon rainfall variability

Signatures of Tibetan Plateau heating on Indian summer monsoon rainfall variability

Changes in daily climate extremes in the eastern and central Tibetan Plateau during 1961–2005

Inter‐decadal variability of Tibetan spring vegetation and its associations with eastern China spring rainfall

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