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Forced response of the East Asian summer rainfall over the past millennium: results from a coupled model simulation

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Abstract

The centennial–millennial variation of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) precipitation over the past 1000 years was investigated through the analysis of a millennium simulation of the coupled ECHO-G model. The model results indicate that the centennial–millennial variation of the EASM is essentially a forced response to the external radiative forcing (insolation, volcanic aerosol, and green house gases). The strength of the response depends on latitude; and the spatial structure of the centennial–millennial variation differs from the interannual variability that arises primarily from the internal feedback processes within the climate system. On millennial time scale, the extratropical and subtropical precipitation was generally strong during Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and weak during Little Ice Age (LIA). The tropical rainfall is insensitive to the effective solar radiation forcing (insolation plus radiative effect of volcanic aerosols) but significantly responds to the modern anthropogenic radiative forcing. On centennial time scale, the variation of the extratropical and subtropical rainfall also tends to follow the effective solar radiation forcing closely. The forced response features in-phase rainfall variability between the extratropics and subtropics, which is in contrast to the anti-correlation on the interannual time scale. Further, the behavior of the interannual–decadal variation in the extratropics is effectively modulated by change of the mean states on the millennial time scale, suggesting that the structure of the internal mode may vary with significant changes in the external forcing. These findings imply that on the millennial time scale, (a) the proxy data in the extratropical EA may more sensitively reflect the EASM rainfall variations, and (b) the Meiyu and the northern China rainfall provide a consistent measure for the EASM strength.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the financial supports from the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant Nos. 2004CB720208 and 2010CB833406), the Innovation Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant Nos. KZCX2-YW-315, KZCX2-YW-319 and KZCX2-YW-337), and the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 40890054, 40871007 and 40672210). We also thank Drs. Eduardo Zorita, Bao Yang and Pingzhong Zhang for providing their corresponding data for this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 73 East Beijing Road, 210008, Nanjing, China

    Jian Liu, Hongli Wang & Ruyuan Ti

  2. Department of Meteorology and IPRC, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

    Bin Wang

  3. School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, 210093, Nanjing, China

    Xueyuan Kuang

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  1. Jian Liu
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  2. Bin Wang
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  3. Hongli Wang
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Correspondence to Jian Liu.

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Liu, J., Wang, B., Wang, H. et al. Forced response of the East Asian summer rainfall over the past millennium: results from a coupled model simulation. Clim Dyn 36, 323–336 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-009-0693-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-009-0693-6

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