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The persistent heavy rainfall over southern China in June 2010: Evolution of synoptic systems and the effects of the Tibetan Plateau heating

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Abstract

This study investigates influencing weather systems for and the effect of Tibetan Plateau (TP)’s surface heating on the heavy rainfall over southern China in June 2010, focusing on the four persistent heavy rainfall events during 14–24 June 2010. The major weather systems include the South Asian high, midlatitude trough and ridge, western Pacific subtropical high in the middle troposphere, and shear lines and eastward-moving vortices in the lower troposphere. An ensemble of convection-permitting simulations (CTL) is carried out with the WRF model for these rainfall events, which successfully reproduce the observed evolution of precipitation and weather systems. Another ensemble of simulations (SEN) with the surface albedo over the TP and its southern slope changed artificially to one, i.e., the surface does not absorb any solar heating, otherwise it is identical to CTL, is also performed. Comparison between CTL and SEN suggests that the surface sensible heating of TP in CTL significantly affects the temperature distributions over the plateau and its surroundings, and the thermal wind adjustment consequently changes atmospheric circulations and properties of the synoptic systems, leading to intensified precipitation over southern China. Specifically, at 200 hPa, anticyclonic and cyclonic anomalies form over the western and eastern plateau, respectively, which enhances the southward cold air intrusion along the eastern TP and the divergence over southern China; at 500 hPa, the ridge over the northern plateau and the trough over eastern China are strengthened, the southwesterly flows along the northwestern side of the subtropical high are intensified, and the positive vorticity propagation from the plateau to its downstream is also enhanced significantly; at 850 hPa, the low-pressure vortices strongly develop and move eastward while the southwesterly low-level jet over southern China strengthens in CTL, leading to increased water vapor convergence and upward motion over the precipitation region.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China

    Xuesong Li  (李雪松), Yali Luo  (罗亚丽) & Zhaoyong Guan  (管兆勇)

  2. Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster of Ministry of Education, School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Xuesong Li  (李雪松)

  3. Dalian Meteorological Bureau, Dalian, 116001, China

    Xuesong Li  (李雪松)

Authors
  1. Xuesong Li  (李雪松)
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  2. Yali Luo  (罗亚丽)
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  3. Zhaoyong Guan  (管兆勇)
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yali Luo  (罗亚丽).

Additional information

Supported by the National (Key) Basic Research and Development (973) Program of China (2012CB417202), National Natural Science Foundation of China (41175049 and 41221064), Basic Research Funds of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (2012Y001), and National Science and Technology Support Program of China (2012BAC22B03).

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Li, X., Luo, Y. & Guan, Z. The persistent heavy rainfall over southern China in June 2010: Evolution of synoptic systems and the effects of the Tibetan Plateau heating. J Meteorol Res 28, 540–560 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13351-014-3284-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13351-014-3284-3

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