Diurnal variations of rainfall and winds are pronounced over the Asian summer monsoon region, but their activities under different monsoon conditions are not clarified. Here, the diurnal cycle of ...monsoon flow and its influence are examined using 20-yr satellite rainfall and reanalysis data. A total of 1840 summer days are partitioned into four dynamic groups of strong or weak background flows with large or small diurnal amplitudes of low-level meridional wind. Large-scale southerly wind is found to be strongest after midnight, with a large diurnal amplitude on strong monsoon days over central-north India and southeast China. Such a nocturnal speed-up is closely associated with the Blackadar boundary layer inertial oscillation due to the diurnal heating over low-lying landmass. It acts like a large air pump that injects moisture poleward at night and strengthens monsoonal circulation with anomalous rising motion at the northern rainband of the Asian monsoon. In particular, monsoon southerlies with large nighttime speed-up converge with downslope winds from the Himalayas or northerly anomaly from midlatitudes. Enhanced water vapor convergence facilitates the growth of organized convection, producing substantial rainfall at the Himalayan foothills in predawn hours and at the mei-yu–baiu zone from predawn to noon. When monsoon flow undergoes a small diurnal cycle, rainfall is instead displaced south and mostly recorded in daytime. Both the daily mean and morning peak of rainfall are suppressed on land under weak monsoon southerlies. Moreover, the monsoon diurnal cycle exhibits evident intraseasonal/interannual variations and contributes to rainfall variability. The results highlight that monsoon flow couples with subdaily forcings to strongly regulate the detailed patterns of rainfall and moisture budget over the Asian monsoon regions.
Monsoon coasts are characterized by active convection, but the features of associated convection initiation (CI) are not well understood. An analysis of kilometer‐resolution radar observations in ...South China reveals a distinct dependence of CI on monsoon activity, land‐sea contrast, and coastal orography. The CI occurrence becomes highly active after the monsoon onset and extends northward in summer. Several CI hotspots appear on tropical islands, peninsulas, and windward slopes of coastal mountains. Daytime CI occurrences are concentrated on land within 100 km of the coastline. The nocturnal CI maxima are located on coastlines and in the offshore areas with adjacent mountains. CI shows an offshore propagation after midnight prior to rainfall, probably due to the convergence of land breezes or downslope winds with diurnally enhanced onshore monsoon flows. The improved understanding of CI may provide additional benefit for forecasting severe weather because CI foretells the development of full‐fledged deep convection.
Plain Language Summary
A large fraction of global rainfall occurs in the coastal areas of summer monsoon which are highly populated. Characterizing convective activity along monsoon coasts has been an important issue in regional/global climate and hydrological studies. For the first time, this study presents a long‐term radar climatology of convection initiation (CI) on the monsoon coasts of South China which have dense observation networks. The results show that CI becomes highly active after the summer monsoon onset. Most CI occurrences are concentrated within 100 km of the coastline, and the local maxima are strongly affected by topography and land‐sea contrast. The triggering of coastal convection also shows strong diurnal cycles with a daytime maximum on land and an offshore propagation after midnight. The findings provide key information to improve our understanding of how convective activity emerges in monsoon coastal areas.
Key Points
We present the first long‐term climatology of convection initiation on the coasts where monsoon flows interact with local circulations
Convection initiation is highly active within 100 km of the coastline, with maxima near local mountains during onshore southwesterlies
The triggering of convection is dominant on land in the afternoon and off the coast after midnight, particularly in the monsoon season
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.
Successive mesoscale convective systems may develop for several days during the mei-yu season (June–July) over eastern China. They can yield excessive rainfall in a narrow latitudinal band (called a ...corridor), causing severe floods. The climatology of rainfall corridors and related environmental factors are examined using 20 yr of satellite rainfall and atmospheric data. A total of 93 corridors are observed over eastern China, with maximum occurrence at 27°–31°N. They typically last 2–3 days, but some persist ≥4 days, with an extreme event lasting 11 days. These multiday convective episodes exhibit primary and secondary peaks in the morning and afternoon, respectively, with a diurnal cycle that is in contrast to other afternoon-peak rain events. On average, the corridors occur in ∼23% days of the mei-yu season, but they can contribute ∼51% of the total rainfall. They also vary with years and explain ∼70% of the interannual variance of mei-yu-season rainfall. Composite analyses show that most corridors develop along zonally oriented quasi-stationary mei-yu fronts over central China where monsoon southwesterlies converge with northerly anomalies from the midlatitudes. The monsoon flow accelerates at ∼0200 LST and forms a regional wind maximum or low-level jet over South China, which induces moisture flux convergence in morning-peak corridors. The nocturnal acceleration is less evident for afternoon-peak corridors. The mei-yu front and monsoon southwesterlies also influence the corridor’s duration, which is regulated by a dipole of geopotential anomalies, with positive in the tropics and negative in the midlatitudes. The dipole expresses a joint influence of the blocking patterns in midlatitudes and the El Niño–related anomalous high over the western Pacific Ocean, and the dipole’s intensity explains well the interannual variations of the corridors.
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.
The Asian monsoon has large spatial and temporal variabilities in winds and precipitation. This study reveals that the Asian monsoon also exhibits pronounced regional differences in cloud regimes and ...cloud–rainfall relationship at a wide range of time scales from diurnal to seasonal to interannual. Over South (East) Asia, the convectively active regime of deep convection (CD) occurs frequently in June–September (March–September) with a late-afternoon peak (morning feature). The intermediate mixture (IM) regime over South Asia mainly occurs in summer and maximizes near noon. It develops as CD at late afternoon and dissipates as convective cirrus (CC) after midnight, showing a life cycle of thermal convection in response to solar radiation. Over East Asia, IM is dominant in cold seasons with a small diurnal cycle, indicating a prevalence of midlevel stratiform clouds. Further analyses show that CD and CC contribute 80%–90% of the rainfall amount and most of the intense rainfall in the two key regions. The CD-related rainfall also accounts for the pronounced diurnal cycles of summer rainfall with a late-afternoon peak (morning feature) over northern India (Southeast China). The afternoon CD-related rainfall mainly results from thermal convection under the moderate humidity but warm conditions particularly over northern India, while the morning CD-related rainfall over Southeast China is more related to the processes with high humidity. The CD/CC-related rainfall also exhibits large interannual variations that explain ∼90% of the interannual variance of summer rainfall. The interannual variations of CD/CC occurrence are positively correlated with the moist southerlies and induced convergence, especially over Southeast China, suggesting a close relationship between cloud regimes and monsoon activities.
Abstract 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.
An extreme cold surge event caused record-breaking low temperatures in East Asia during 20-25 January 2016. The planetary- and synoptic-scale feature of the event is investigated quantitatively using ...the isentropic cold air mass analysis with a threshold potential temperature of 280 K. Because cold air mass is an adiabatically conservative quantity, it is suitable for tracing and examining the extreme cold surges. We further introduced a metric named mean wind of cold air mass, which divides the factor of cold air mass evolution into convergence and advection parts. The new metric allowed us to trace the evolution of the cold air mass with dynamic consistency for a period of more than a week. A thick cold air mass built up over southern Sakha by a convergent cold air mass flow during 16-18 January. It migrated westward and reached Lake Baikal. On 20 January, an intense Siberian High developed, with an eastward-moving mid-upper-level ridge, producing a strong surface pressure gradient over the coastal regions of the Asian continent. This ridge and a cutoff low to the adjacent east formed a northerly flow in the mid-upper troposphere. The resultant southward flow through the troposphere blew the cold air mass over 480 hPa in thickness to the subtropical region of East Asia, causing strong cold surges there on 24 and 25 January. The abnormality of the event is further quantified using extreme value theory. The cold air mass gradually became rare along the path of the cold air mass from Lake Baikal to eastern China, which experienced as thick a cold air mass as once in 200 years. The cold air mass itself shows little change in thickness. Therefore, the migration of a cold air mass over 540 hPa in thickness from northern Siberia is the major cause of this cold surge extreme.
The mountain-plains solenoid (MPS) and boundary-layer inertial oscillation (BLO) are two typical regional forcings at the diurnal time scale. Their relative role in regulating the diurnal variations ...of summer rainfall over North China and their change under different monsoon conditions are studied using a 19-yr archive of satellite rainfall and reanalysis data. It is shown that both a strong MPS and BLO can increase nocturnal rainfall in the North China plains but exhibit evident regional differences. The MPS-induced nocturnal rainfall is relatively confined to the plains adjacent to mountains from late night to morning, due to the upward branch of the nighttime MPS. In contrast, the BLO-induced nocturnal rainfall strengthens from early evening and is more extensive in early morning over the open plains further east. The contrasting effect in the evening is related to the convergent (divergent) easterly anomaly in the plains under the BLO (MPS). The BLO also induces the relatively strong enhancement of moisture convergence and high humidity by the southerly anomaly at late night. On strong monsoon days, the nocturnal rainfall amount associated with the MPS and BLO increases considerably in the plains. Both regional forcings become effective in regulating the rainfall diurnal cycle with enhanced moisture convergence under monsoon conditions. Their induced diurnal amplitudes of moisture convergence can be comparable to the daily mean by monsoon flow. The regional forcings thus couple with monsoon flow to strengthen rainfall in the plains, particularly from late night to morning. The results highlight that a combination of regional and large-scale forcings can strongly regulate the warm-season climate.
Abstract
The East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM) exhibits long-term variations in intensity and spatial pattern, though the latter one is less understood. To investigate the long-term spatial variations ...of the EAWM and their possible causes, we propose a new position index of the EAWM by quantifying the low-level East Asian stream (EAS) of cold airmass in the Lagrangian sense. Based on the new-defined index, we find that the EAS undergoes an evident zonal shift between two channels over the land and coast. At interdecadal timescale, the peak location of the EAS is displaced eastward, with an increasing southward cold airmass flux at the coast since the mid-1960s. The interannual shift of the EAS presents not only the zonal oscillation of peak location between two channels but also the width changes of coastal channel over the northwestern Pacific. These shifts in the EAS are related to the strength changes of two source cold airmass streams from Siberia or Bering Sea, which are associated with the phase changes in the upper-tropospheric atmospheric teleconnections. At interdecadal timescale, the phase change in the North Atlantic Oscillation modulates the zonal shift in the EAS via the East Atlantic-West Russia teleconnection. At interannual timescale, the Pacific/North American teleconnection becomes the dominant factor altering the zonal shift and width change of the EAS.
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