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Mechanism of the summer rainfall variation in Transitional Climate Zone in East Asia from the perspective of moisture supply during 1979–2010 based on the Lagrangian method

Climate Dynamics volume 60, pages 1225–1238 (2023)Cite this article

Abstract

Transitional Climate Zone (TCZ) over East Asia, characterized by semi-arid climate, is ecologically fragile environment with limited water resources, making atmospheric moisture supply being the key influential factor. This study investigates the moisture sources of summer (JJA) rainfall in the TCZ over East Asia and associated impact during 1979–2010 with the Lagrangian particle dispersion model. Seven moisture source regions and associated contribution are quantified: Eurasia continent to northwest of the TCZ (EC, 32.14%), central-eastern China (CEC, 16.62%), western Pacific Ocean (WPO, 8.58%), South China Sea and Indonesia (SCSI, 2.99%), Bay of Bengal (BOB, 1.4%), Arabian Sea (AS, 0.71%) and local evaporation (TCZ, 32.58%). The direct moisture contribution from ocean (13.67%) is much less than those from the continent (81.34%), due to the great loss en-route. In particular, the local evaporation not only contributes the most moisture among 7 selected source regions, but also exerts the greatest influence in summer precipitation variability in TCZ. Furthermore, the moisture related to summer rainfall over TCZ conveyed by westerlies and monsoon are discriminated according to the dominant system of moisture source regions. It is found that moisture contributions from summer monsoon system (30.3%) and the mid-latitude westerlies (32.14%) dominant areas are quite close. However, further analysis shows that summer monsoon system takes more responsibility for inter-annual fluctuation of summer precipitation in TCZ from the perspective of moisture supply, followed by local evaporation and mid-latitude westerlies.

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Data Availability

The FLEXPART model is driving by NCEP–CFSR 6-hourly forecast data dataset, which can be retrieved from http://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds093.0/. Japanese 55-year Reanalysis dataset (JRA-55), constructed by the Japan Meteorological Agency, are also available online (http://search.diasjp.net/en/dataset/JRA55). The daily observation precipitation data used in this study is provided by the National Meteorological Information Center of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA; https://data.cma.cn/)

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grants Nos. 41875115, 41961144016, 42175041 and 41831175, STEP (2019QZKK0102) and Key Deployment Project of Centre for Ocean Mega-Research of Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (COMS2019Q03).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Qiulin Wang & Gang Huang

  2. College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China

    Qiulin Wang & Gang Huang

  3. CAS Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environment for Temperate East Asia, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Lin Wang

  4. Center for Monsoon System Research, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100190, Beijing, China

    Jinling Piao, Tianjiao Ma & Peng Hu

  5. Laboratory for Regional Oceanography and Numerical Modeling, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, 266237, Qingdao, China

    Gang Huang

  6. Department of Geography, Faculties of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand

    Chakrit Chotamonsak

  7. Environmental Research and Training Center, Klong 5, Klong Luang, Technopolis, Pathumthani, 12120, Thailand

    Atsamon Limsakul

  8. Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Gang Huang

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  1. Qiulin Wang
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Wang, Q., Huang, G., Wang, L. et al. Mechanism of the summer rainfall variation in Transitional Climate Zone in East Asia from the perspective of moisture supply during 1979–2010 based on the Lagrangian method. Clim Dyn 60, 1225–1238 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06344-8

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