Abstract
The 1998 summer—time floods at the Yangtze River basin of China, the severest in last 50 years or so, directly resulted from the abnormal extension of Meiyu (rainy season), which was related to a weak East Asian summer monsoon and persistent anomalies of extratropical circulation. The long persistence of block-ing over the Ural Mountains is a conspicuous feature. The physical processes responsible for the prolonged maintenance of this key system are investigated in terms of internal forcing (transient eddy upon basic flow) and external forcing (tropical heating forcing) via diagnosis and numerical experiments in the paper.
Using the adjoint method, the location and structure of optimal perturbations favorable for the development and maintenance of Ural blocking are identified, which shows an apparent coincidence with the observed storm track at the eastern Atlantic to Europe sector. The diagnosis of E—vector and the response of baroclinic stationary wave to transient forcing both suggest further that the enhanced transient eddy activity favors the occurrence and maintenance of positive anomalies.
The upper—level jet and heat sources (sinks) during that period are calculated, and the results indicate that the anomaly of upper jet and tropical heating is evident. The ensemble forecasting experiments by a GCM, IAP T42L9 show that the anomalous heating over the tropics, especially over the central-western Pacific and Atlantic, favors the formation of positive anomalies of height at the Ural region. Finally, a self—sustain mechanism of positive anomalies through two—way interaction between planetary stationary wave and transient eddy under the stimulation of anomalous tropical heating is proposed.
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This work was supported by the CAS Key project KZCX2—203 the Research Program for the Excellent State Key Laboratory (Grant No.49823002), and the Study on Formation Mechanism of Key Weather Disaster in China (Grant No. 97-13G-21).
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Shuanglin, L., Liren, J., Wantao, L. et al. The maintenance of the blocking over the ural mountains during the second Meiyu period in the summer of 1998. Adv. Atmos. Sci. 18, 87–105 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-001-0006-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-001-0006-4