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Orbital control of the western North Pacific summer monsoon

Climate Dynamics volume 46, pages 897–911 (2016)Cite this article

Abstract

Orbital forcing exerts a strong influence on global monsoon systems, with higher summer insolation leading to stronger summer monsoons in the Northern Hemisphere. However, the associated regional and seasonal changes, particularly the interaction between regional monsoon systems, remain unclear. Simulations using the Community Earth System Model demonstrate that the western North Pacific (WNP) summer monsoon responds to orbital forcing opposite to that of other major Northern Hemisphere monsoon systems. Compared with its current climate state, the simulated WNP monsoon and associated lower-tropospheric trough is absent in the early Holocene when the precession-modulated Northern Hemisphere summer insolation is higher, whereas the summer monsoons in South and East Asia are stronger and shift farther northward. We attribute the weaker WNP monsoon to the stronger diabatic heating of the summer Asian monsoon—in particular over the southern Tibetan Plateau and Maritime Continent—that in turn strengthens the North Pacific subtropical high through atmospheric teleconnections. By contrast, the impact of the midlatitude circulation changes on the WNP monsoon is weaker when the solar insolation is higher. Prior to the present WNP monsoon onset, the upper-tropospheric East Asian jet stream weakens and shifts northward; the monsoon onset is highly affected by the jet-induced high potential vorticity intrusion. In the instance of the extreme perihelion-summer, the WNP monsoon is suppressed despite a stronger midlatitude precursor than present-day, and the midlatitude circulation response to the enhanced South Asian precipitation is considerable. These conditions indicate internal monsoon interactions of an orbital scale, implying a potential mechanistic control of the WNP monsoon.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Consortium for Climate Change Study (CCliCS) under the auspices of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Taiwan, under grant MOST 100–2119–M–001–029–MY5 (CHW, HHH) and MOST 102–2611–M–001–006–(SYL). JC was also supported by NSF grant AGS-1405479. We acknowledge the use of the CESM (http://www.cesm.ucar.edu) of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and SPEEDY from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP, http://www.ictp.it/research/esp/models/speedy.aspx), as well as data sets available from the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) and National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), and the National Center for High-performance Computing for computer time and facilities. We also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions and Ms. Hai-Wei Lin for preparing schematic diagram.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Center for Environmental Changes, Academia Sinica, 128 Academia Road, Section 2, Nankang, Taipei, 115, Taiwan

    Chi-Hua Wu, John C. H. Chiang, Huang-Hsiung Hsu & Shih-Yu Lee

  2. Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    John C. H. Chiang

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  1. Chi-Hua Wu
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  2. John C. H. Chiang
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  3. Huang-Hsiung Hsu
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Correspondence to Chi-Hua Wu.

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Wu, CH., Chiang, J.C.H., Hsu, HH. et al. Orbital control of the western North Pacific summer monsoon. Clim Dyn 46, 897–911 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2620-3

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Keywords

  • Holocene
  • Orbital forcing
  • Paleomonsoon
  • Precession
  • Western North Pacific