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The reduced Siberian spring snow cover modulation on southward northernmost margin of East Asia summer monsoon

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Abstract

The northernmost margin of the East Asian summer monsoon (NMEASM) is the northernmost position that the East Asia summer monsoon (EASM) can reach. NMEASM has obvious multi-scale variability, and well reflects the wet/dry climate variability in northern China. Predicting the location change of the NMEASM is important for understanding future East Asian climate change. However, the variability of the NMEASM has not been studied extensively, and its underlying mechanisms have not been clarified. To explore the movement of the NMEASM and its causes, we use reanalysis datasets to evaluate the NMEASM index from 1979 to 2018. The NMEASM indicates a decreasing trend over 40 years and a significant abrupt point in 2000, which is positively correlated with the Tibetan Plateau snow cover before 2000 and the Siberian snow cover after 2000 in spring. The decreased Siberian snow cover increases the soil temperature and decreases the atmospheric baroclinicity over Mongolia and northern China after 2000. The decreased atmospheric baroclinicity induces the dipole mode of anticyclonic anomaly over Mongolia and northern China and the cyclonic anomaly over the Sea of Japan by modulating the wave activity flux (WAF). The WAF’s southeastward propagation strengthens the anticyclonic anomaly over Mongolia and northern China and the cyclonic anomaly over the Sea of Japan, which weakens the upward movement and water vapor transport, respectively. Hence, the decreased Siberian snow cover in spring modulates the precipitation over Mongolia and northern China and the southward movement of NMEASM by turbulent westerly circulation.

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Data availability

The ERA-interim daily reanalysis data is available at https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/dataset/ecmwf-reanalysis-interim (last accessed on 17 September 2022). The daily Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Global Unified Gauge-Based Analysis is available at https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.cpc.globalprecip.html (last accessed on 17 September 2022). The monthly Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) is available at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/climate-data-records/precipitation-gpcp-monthly (last accessed on 17 September 2022). The weekly snow cover data of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) is available at http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover (last accessed on 17 September 2022). The Community Earth System Model (CESM) is available at https://www.cesm.ucar.edu/models (last accessed on 17 September 2022).

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Acknowledgements

The numerical calculations in this paper have been done on the supercomputing system in the Supercomputing Center of Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology.

Funding

J.Z. is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 42088101; 41975083). J.L. is supported by the Innovative Project of Postgraduates in Jiangsu Province in 2021 (Grant No. KYCX21_0951).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Ministry of Education (KLME), Joint International Research Laboratory of Climate and Environment Change (ILCEC)/Collaborative Innovation Center On Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters (CIC-FEMD), Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Shiying Wu, Jie Zhang, Junjun Li, Zhiheng Chen, Miaomiao Niu, Yuxin Kuang & Rui Hu

  2. Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA

    Yun Hang

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  1. Shiying Wu
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JZ contributed to the study's conception and design. SW and JL wrote the main manuscript text and prepared all figures. All authors reviewed and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jie Zhang.

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Wu, S., Zhang, J., Li, J. et al. The reduced Siberian spring snow cover modulation on southward northernmost margin of East Asia summer monsoon. Clim Dyn 61, 2949–2964 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-06732-8

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