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Equatorward shift of the South Asian high in response to anthropogenic forcing

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Abstract

The South Asian high (SAH) is a huge anticyclone in the upper troposphere. It influences the climate and the distribution of trace constituents and pollutants. The present study documents the change in the SAH and precipitation under global warming, as well as the possible link between the changes, based on 17 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) model simulations. The CMIP5 historical simulation reproduces reasonably the tropospheric circulation (including the SAH), precipitation, and moisture. Under global warming, more than 75 % of the CMIP5 models project a southward shift of the SAH. The southward shift is more significant in the models with stronger anticyclonic circulation in the south part of the climatological SAH. The precipitation response displays a contrasting feature: negative over the southeastern equatorial Indian Ocean (IO) and positive over the tropical northern IO, the Bay of Bengal, and the equatorial western Pacific. The results of a linear baroclinic model (LBM) show that the regional rainfall changes over the Bay of Bengal and the equatorial western Pacific have a main contribution to the southward shift of the SAH. In addition, the precipitation and the surface wind responses over the Indo-Pacific region are well coupled. On one hand, the surface wind anomaly affects the rainfall response through altering the SST and moisture. On the other hand, the condensational heating released by regional rainfall changes sustains the surface wind response.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modeling groups (listed in Table 1 of this paper) for producing and making available their model output. For CMIP, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led the development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals. Besides, we wish to thank Prof. Renguang Wu for the insightful comments that lead to a significant improvement to the manuscript. The study was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (grant NO. 2012CB955604), Open Research Fund Program of Plateau Atmosphere and Environment Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province Grants PAEKL-2013-K2 and PAEKL-2014-K2, and the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (grant nos. 41205050 and 91337105).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Monsoon System Research, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Xia Qu & Kaiming Hu

  2. Plateau Atmosphere and Environment Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu, 610225, China

    Xia Qu

  3. Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environment Research for Temperate East Asia, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Gang Huang

  4. Physical Oceanography Laboratory and Ocean–Atmosphere Interaction and Climate Laboratory, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, China

    Shang-Ping Xie & Xiao-Tong Zheng

  5. Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Environmental Dynamics, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, China

    Yan Du

  6. The First Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Qingdao, 266061, China

    Lin Liu

  7. Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Gang Huang

  8. International Pacific Research Center and Department of Meteorology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii

    Shang-Ping Xie

  9. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, La Jolla, San Diego, CA, USA

    Shang-Ping Xie

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  1. Xia Qu
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  2. Gang Huang
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  3. Kaiming Hu
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  4. Shang-Ping Xie
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  5. Yan Du
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  6. Xiao-Tong Zheng
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  7. Lin Liu
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Correspondence to Gang Huang.

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Qu, X., Huang, G., Hu, K. et al. Equatorward shift of the South Asian high in response to anthropogenic forcing. Theor Appl Climatol 119, 113–122 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-014-1095-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-014-1095-1

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