Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

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

  • Published:
Climate Dynamics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

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.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11

Similar content being viewed by others

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/)

References

  • Bin C, Xiang-De X, Tianliang Z (2013) Main moisture sources affecting lower Yangtze River Basin in boreal summers during 2004–2009. Int J Climatol 33(4):1035–1046

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen J, Wei H, Jin LY, Chen JH, Chen SQ, Chen FH (2018) A climatological northern boundary index for the East Asian summer monsoon and its interannual variability. Sci China-Earth Sci 61(1):13–22

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen B, Zhang W, Yang S, Xu XD (2019) Identifying and contrasting the sources of the water vapor reaching the subregions of the Tibetan Plateau during the wet season. Clim Dyn 53(11):6891–6907

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen W, Wang L, Feng J, Wen ZP, Ma TJ, Yang XQ, Wang CH (2019) Recent progress in studies of the variabilities and mechanisms of the East Asian Monsoon in a changing climate. Adv Atmos Sci 36(9):887–901

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dorling SR, Davies TD, Pierce CE (1992) Cluster-analysis - a technique for estimating the synoptic meteorological controls on air and precipitation chemistry - method and applications. Atmos Environ Part a General Top 26(14):2575–2581

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hao Y, Zhihong J, Zhengyu L, Qiang Z (2014) Analysis of climatic characteristics of water vapor transport based on the Lagrangian method: a comparison between Meiyu in the Yangtze – Huaihe River region and the Huaibei rainy season. Chin J Atmos Sci 38(5):965–973

    Google Scholar 

  • Harada Y, Kamahori H, Kobayashi C, Endo H, Kobayashi S, Ota Y, Onoda H, Onogi K, Miyaoka K, Takahashi K (2016) The JRA-55 reanalysis: representation of atmospheric circulation and climate variability. J Meteorol Soc Jpn 94(3):269–302

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • He C, Zhou W (2020) Different enhancement of the East Asian Summer Monsoon under Global Warming and Interglacial Epochs Simulated by CMIP6 Models: role of the subtropical high. J Clim 33(22):9721–9733

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huang YJ, Cui XP (2015) Moisture sources of an extreme precipitation event in Sichuan, China, based on the Lagrangian method. Atmos Sci Lett 16(2):177–183

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huang G, Liu Y, Huang RH (2011) The Interannual Variability of Summer Rainfall in the Arid and Semiarid Regions of Northern China and Its Association with the Northern Hemisphere Circumglobal Teleconnection. Adv Atmos Sci 28(2):257–268

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huang R, Liu Y, Feng T (2012) Interdecadal change of summer precipitation over Eastern China around the late-1990s and associated circulation anomalies, internal dynamical causes. Chin Sci Bull 58(12):1339–1349

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huang J, Li Y, Fu C, Chen F, Fu Q, Dai A, Shinoda M, Ma Z, Guo W, Li Z, Zhang L, Liu Y, Yu H, He Y, Xie Y, Guan X, Ji M, Lin L, Wang S, Yan H, Wang G (2017) Dryland climate change: recent progress and challenges. Rev Geophys 55(3):719–778

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huang JP, Ma JR, Guan XD, Li Y, He YL (2019) Progress in semi-arid climate change studies in China. Adv Atmos Sci 36(9):922–937

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huang JP, Zhang GL, Zhang YT, Guan XD, Wei Y, Guo RX (2020) Global desertification vulnerability to climate change and human activities. Land Degrad Dev 31(11):1380–1391

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • James P, Stohl A, Spichtinger N, Eckhardt S, Forster C (2004) Climatological aspects of the extreme European rainfall of August 2002 and a trajectory method for estimating the associated evaporative source regions. Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 4(5–6):733–746

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kobayashi S, Ota Y, Harada Y, Ebita A, Moriya M, Onoda H, Onogi K, Kamahori H, Kobayashi C, Endo H, Miyaoka K, Takahashi K (2015) The JRA-55 reanalysis: general specifications and basic characteristics. J Meteorol Soc Jpn 93(1):5–48

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li Y, Huang JP, Ji MX, Ran JJ (2015) Dryland expansion in northern China from 1948 to 2008. Adv Atmos Sci 32(6):870–876

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lu W, Jia GS (2013) Fluctuation of farming-pastoral ecotone in association with changing East Asia monsoon climate. Clim Change 119(3–4):747–760

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nieto R, Gimeno L, Trigo RM (2006) A Lagrangian identification of major sources of Sahel moisture. Geophys Res Lett 33(18):L18707

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Numaguti A (1999) Origin and recycling processes of precipitating water over the Eurasian continent: Experiments using an atmospheric general circulation model. J Geophys Res-Atmos 104(D2):1957–1972

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oshima K, Tachibana Y, Hiyama T (2015) Climate and year-to-year variability of atmospheric and terrestrial water cycles in the three great Siberian rivers. J Geophys Res-Atmos 120(8):3043–3062

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ou TH, Qian WH (2006) Vegetation variations along the monsoon boundary zone in East Asia. Chin J Geophys-Chin Ed 49(3):698–705

    Google Scholar 

  • Peng DD, Zhou TJ, Zhang LX (2020) Moisture sources associated with precipitation during dry and wet seasons over Central Asia. J Clim 33(24):10755–10771

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Piao JL, Chen W, Wei K, Liu Y, Graf HF, Ahn JB, Pogoreltsev A (2017) An abrupt rainfall decrease over the Asian inland plateau region around 1999 and the possible underlying mechanism. Adv Atmos Sci 34(4):456–468

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pisso I, Sollum E, Grythe H, Kristiansen NI, Cassiani M, Eckhardt S, Arnold D, Morton D, Thompson RL, Zwaaftink CDG, Evangeliou N, Sodemann H, Haimberger L, Henne S, Brunner D, Burkhart JF, Fouilloux A, Brioude J, Philipp A, Seibert P, Stohl A (2019) The Lagrangian particle dispersion model FLEXPART version 10.4. Geosci Model Dev 12(12):4955–4997

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Qian WH, Ding T, Hu HR, Lin X, Qin AM (2009) An Overview of Dry-wet Climate Variability among Monsoon-Westerly Regions and the Monsoon Northernmost Marginal Active Zone in China. Adv Atmos Sci 26(4):630–641

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Qian CA, Wu ZH, Fu CB, Zhou TJ (2010) On multi-timescale variability of temperature in China in modulated annual cycle reference frame. Adv Atmos Sci 27(5):1169–1182

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salih AAM, Zhang Q, Tjernstrom M (2015) Lagrangian tracing of Sahelian Sudan moisture sources. J Geophys Res-Atmos 120(14):6793–6808

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salih AAM, Zhang Q, Pausata FSR, Tjernstrom M (2016) Sources of Sahelian-Sudan moisture: insights from a moisture-tracing atmospheric model. J Geophys Res-Atmos 121(13):7819–7832

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simmonds I, Bi DH, Hope P (1999) Atmospheric water vapor flux and its association with rainfall over China in summer. J Clim 12(5):1353–1367

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sodemann H, Schwierz C, Wernli H (2008) Interannual variability of Greenland winter precipitation sources: Lagrangian moisture diagnostic and North Atlantic Oscillation influence. J Geophys Res-Atmos 113:D3

    Google Scholar 

  • Stein AF, Draxler RR, Rolph GD, Stunder BJB, Cohen MD, Ngan F (2015) Noaa’s Hysplit atmospheric transport and dispersion modeling system. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 96(12):2059–2077

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stohl A, James P (2004) A Lagrangian analysis of the atmospheric branch of the global water cycle. part I: Method description, validation, and demonstration for the August 2002 flooding in central Europe. J Hydrometeorol 5(4):656–678

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sun B, Wang HJ (2013) Water vapor transport paths and accumulation during widespread snowfall events in Northeastern China. J Clim 26(13):4550–4566

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sun B, Wang HJ (2014) Moisture sources of semiarid grassland in China using the Lagrangian particle model FLEXPART. J Clim 27(6):2457–2474

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sun B, Wang HJ (2015) Analysis of the major atmospheric moisture sources affecting three sub-regions of East China. Int J Climatol 35(9):2243–2257

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trenberth KE, Guillemot CJ (1995) Evaluation of the global atmospheric moisture budget as seen from analyses. J Clim 8(9):2255–2272

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang L, Chen W (2014) A CMIP5 multimodel projection of future temperature, precipitation, and climatological drought in China. Int J Climatol 34(6):2059–2078

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang L, Chen W, Huang G, Zeng G (2017) Changes of the transitional climate zone in East Asia: past and future. Clim Dyn 49(4):1463–1477

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang S, Zuo H, Zhao S, Zhang J, Lu S (2017) How East Asian westerly jet’s meridional position affects the summer rainfall in Yangtze-Huaihe River Valley? Clim Dyn 51(11–12):4109–4121

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang QL, Wang L, Huang G, Piao JL, Chotamonsak C (2021) Temporal and spatial variation of the transitional climate zone in summer during 1961–2018. Int J Climatol 41(3):1633–1648

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xu Y, Zhao P, Si D, Cao L, Wu X, Zhao Y, Liu N (2019) Development and preliminary application of a gridded surface air temperature homogenized dataset for China. Theor Appl Climatol 139(1–2):505–516

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhao W, Chen W, Chen SF, Nath D, Wang L (2020) Interdecadal change in the impact of North Atlantic SST on August rainfall over the monsoon transitional belt in China around the late 1990s. Theor Appl Climatol 140(1–2):503–516

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhihong J, Wei R, Zhengyu L, Hao Y (2013) Analysis of Water Vapor transport characteristics during the Meiyu over the Yangzi-Huaihe river valley using theLagrangian method. Acta Meteorol Sin 71(2):295–304

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhu X, Wu T, Hu G, Wang S, Wu X, Li R, Wang W, Wen A, Ni J, Li X, Hao J (2020) Long-distance atmospheric moisture dominates water budget in permafrost regions of the CentralQinghai-Tibetplateau. Hydrol Process 34(22):4280–4294

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arthur D, Vassilvitskii S (2007) k-means++: The Advantages of Careful Seeding. Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms. Philadelphia: 1027–1035

  • Saha S, Moorthi S, Pan HL, Wu XR, Wang JD, Nadiga S, Tripp P, Kistler R, Woollen J, Behringer D, Liu HX, Stokes D, Grumbine R, Gayno G, Wang J, Hou YT, Chuang HY, Juang HMH, Sela J, Iredell M, Treadon R, Kleist D, Van Delst P, Keyser D, Derber J, Ek M, Meng J, Wei HL, Yang RQ, Lord S, Van den Dool H, Kumar A, Wang WQ, Long C, Chelliah M, Xue Y, Huang BY, Schemm JK, Ebisuzaki W, Lin R, Xie PP, Chen MY, Zhou ST, Higgins W, Zou CZ, Liu QH, Chen Y, Han Y, Cucurull L, Reynolds RW, Rutledge G, Goldberg M (2010) The Ncep Climate Forecast System Reanalysis. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 91(8):1015–1057

  • Thinsungnoen T, Kaoungku N, Durongdumronchai P, Kerdprasop K, Kerdprasop N (2015) The Clustering Validity with Silhouette and Sum of Squared Errors. In: The Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Industrial Application Engineering 2015: 44–51

  • Wang WG, Li HY, Wang J, Hao XH(2020) Water Vapor from Western Eurasia Promotes Precipitation during the Snow Season in Northern Xinjiang, a Typical Arid Region in Central Asia. Water12(1)

  • Zhao W, Chen W, Chen SF, Yao SL, Nath D(2019) Inter-annual variations of precipitation over the monsoon transitional zone in China during August-September: Role of sea surface temperature anomalies over the tropical Pacific and North Atlantic. Atmos Sci Lett 20(1)

Download references

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).

Author information

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

Authors
  1. Qiulin Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Gang Huang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Lin Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Jinling Piao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Tianjiao Ma
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Peng Hu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Chakrit Chotamonsak
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Atsamon Limsakul
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Gang Huang or Lin Wang.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

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

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06344-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation