Climate Variability and Climate Extreme Events over Asia on Various Time-Scales since the Last Glacial Maximum

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Climatology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 August 2021) | Viewed by 18574

Special Issue Editors

1. School of Geography, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, Jiangsu Province, China
2. Department of Geoscience, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
Interests: climate variability; climate change; climate dynamics; climate modeling; paleoclimate; climate downscaling; applications of climate changes on interdisciplinary studies
School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
Interests: dynamics and climatic impact of thermohaline circulation; climate modelling; paleoclimate
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Guest Editor
Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710061, China
Interests: paleoclimate modeling; paleoclimate change on different timescales; mineral dust modeling; regional climate/environment change
School of Geography, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210097, China
Interests: paleoclimate modeling; climate dynamics; climate variability; East Asian summer monsoon; climate responses to land use and cover changes

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Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Interests: paleoclimate modeling; physical oceanography; glacier dynamics and sea level change

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Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
Interests: climatology; hydroclimatology; synoptic climatology; climate data analytics

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Key Laboratory of Tree-Ring Physical and Chemical Research (CMA), Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Tree-Ring Ecology, Institute of Desert Meteorology, China Meteorological Administration, Urumqi 830002, China
Interests: tree rings; dendrochronology; dendroclimatology; dendrohydrology; stable isotope climate change; extreme climates; forest carbon sink
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Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S, Canada
Interests: climate dynamics; paleoclimatology; solid earth; computational physics

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Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
Interests: paleoecology; paleoclimatology; vegetation dynamics; global climate change; Quaternary environments

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Much attention has been dedicated toward improving the understanding of climate variability and climate extreme events on different time scales over the Asia region, and influences on regional water resources, ecosystems, and environments since the Last Glacial Maximum. This topic has been the focus of the climatology, geology, and geography communities through observation, reconstruction, and modeling, but big challenges still remain within areas such as spatial extents and durations of climate variability on different time-scales, differentiations of influences from anthropogenic and natural forcings, gaps (e.g., magnitudes and extents) between paleoclimate reconstructions and model simulations, and physical mechanisms behind typical extreme events (e.g., Younger Dryas, 8.2 ka BP event, 4.2 ka BP event, Little Ice Age, etc.).

To improve communication on current progress, this Special Issue invites papers focusing on different aspects of climate variability and climate extreme events on different time-scales over the Asia region, and corresponding influences since the LGM, including but not limited to evidence and predictions of climate variability and changes on different time-scales, and corresponding influences and adaptions; characteristics, variability, and mechanisms of extreme climate events from centennial to inter-annual scales; comparisons between paleoclimate reconstructions and modeling; and different influences from natural and anthropogenic forcings.

Dr. Liang Ning
Dr. Jun Cheng
Dr. Zhengguo Shi
Dr. Mi Yan
Dr. Yonggang Liu
Dr. Zhengyu Liu
Prof. Dr. Ruibo Zhang
Dr. Deepak Chandan
Prof. Dr. John W. Williams
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • climate variability
  • climate extreme events
  • climate changes and predictions
  • paleoclimatology
  • various time-scales
  • climate observation, reconstruction, and modeling
  • natural forcings
  • anthropogenic forcings

Published Papers (8 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 6073 KiB  
Article
Attribution Analysis of Annual Precipitation Simulation Differences and Its Correction of CMIP5 Climate Models on the Chinese Mainland
by Xinyu Sun and Yongdi Wang
Atmosphere 2022, 13(3), 382; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13030382 - 24 Feb 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1380
Abstract
Using the self-organizing maps (SOM) method, we ranked and compared the simulation results of atmospheric circulation and precipitation for 32 global climate models (GCMs) in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) over China, and found that the ranking of the GCM’s [...] Read more.
Using the self-organizing maps (SOM) method, we ranked and compared the simulation results of atmospheric circulation and precipitation for 32 global climate models (GCMs) in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) over China, and found that the ranking of the GCM’s ability to simulate the frequency of sea level pressure (SLP) weather patterns (WPs) was not correlated with the ranking of its ability to simulate annual precipitation WPs. Then, we attributed the precipitation simulation differences and identified three main components for the differences in the multi-model simulation results: internal variability, frequency differences, and the combined term of the two, with internal variability being the largest of the three components. These three deviations depend ultimately on two factors: the ability to simulate the frequency of WPs and the ability to simulate the corresponding average daily precipitation generated by these WPs, with the second factor playing a decisive role. Then, to address the drawback that the model ensemble results cannot be effectively improved when each single model that makes up the ensemble model is dry or wet, a solution was proposed to correct for the simulation differences: the nodal precipitation differences of each WP were corrected. After the correction of the simulation differences, the simulation capability of all the individual models was greatly improved, which increases our confidence in using the CMIP5 models for future weather patterns and precipitation simulation and forecasting. Full article
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23 pages, 6655 KiB  
Article
Simulation and Evaluation of Statistical Downscaling of Regional Daily Precipitation over North China Based on Self-Organizing Maps
by Yongdi Wang and Xinyu Sun
Atmosphere 2022, 13(1), 86; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13010086 - 6 Jan 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1539
Abstract
A statistical downscaling method based on Self-Organizing Maps (SOM), of which the SOM Precipitation Statistical Downscaling Method (SOM-SD) is named, has received increasing attention. Herein, its applicability of downscaling daily precipitation over North China is evaluated. Six indices (total season precipitation, daily precipitation [...] Read more.
A statistical downscaling method based on Self-Organizing Maps (SOM), of which the SOM Precipitation Statistical Downscaling Method (SOM-SD) is named, has received increasing attention. Herein, its applicability of downscaling daily precipitation over North China is evaluated. Six indices (total season precipitation, daily precipitation intensity, mean number of precipitation days, percentage of rainfall from events beyond the 95th percentile value of overall precipitation, maximum consecutive wet days, and maximum consecutive dry days) are selected, which represent the statistics of daily precipitation with regards to both precipitation amount and frequency, as well as extreme event. The large-scale predictors were extracted from the National Center for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) daily reanalysis data, while the prediction was the high resolution gridded daily observed precipitation. The results show that the method can establish certain conditional transformation relationships between large-scale atmospheric circulation and local-scale surface precipitation in a relatively simple way. This method exhibited a high skill in reproducing the climatologic statistical properties of the observed precipitation. The simulated daily precipitation probability distribution characteristics can be well matched with the observations. The values of Brier scores are between 0 and 1.5 × 10−4 and the significance scores are between 0.8 and 1 for all stations. The SOM-SD method, which is evaluated with the six selected indicators, shows a strong simulation capability. The deviations of the simulated daily precipitation are as follows: Total season precipitation (−7.4%), daily precipitation intensity (−11.6%), mean number of rainy days (−3.1 days), percentage of rainfall from events beyond the 95th percentile value of overall precipitation (+3.4%), maximum consecutive wet days (−1.1 days), and maximum consecutive dry days (+3.5 days). In addition, the frequency difference of wet-dry nodes is defined in the evaluation. It is confirmed that there was a significant positive correlation between frequency difference and precipitation. The findings of this paper imply that the SOM-SD method has a good ability to simulate the probability distribution of daily precipitation, especially the tail of the probability distribution curve. It is more capable of simulating extreme precipitation fields. Furthermore, it can provide some guidance for future climate projections over North China. Full article
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14 pages, 4799 KiB  
Article
A 479-Year Early Summer Temperature Reconstruction Based on Tree-Ring in the Southeastern Tibetan Plateau, China
by Yu Zhang, Jinjian Li, Zeyu Zheng and Shenglan Zeng
Atmosphere 2021, 12(10), 1251; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12101251 - 27 Sep 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2156
Abstract
Due to the lack of long-term climate records, our understanding of paleoclimatic variability in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) is still limited. In this study, we developed a tree-ring width (TRW) chronology based on tree-ring cores collected from our study site, southeastern TP. This [...] Read more.
Due to the lack of long-term climate records, our understanding of paleoclimatic variability in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) is still limited. In this study, we developed a tree-ring width (TRW) chronology based on tree-ring cores collected from our study site, southeastern TP. This chronology responded well to the mean maximum temperatures of May–June and was thus used to reconstruct early summer (May–June) maximum temperature during the period 1541–2019. The reconstruction explained 33.6% of the climatic variance during the calibration period 1962–2019. There were 34 extremely warm years (7.2% of total years) and 36 extremely cold years (7.5% of total years) during the reconstruction period. The spatial correlation analysis and the comparison with other local temperature reconstructions confirmed the reliability and representativeness of our reconstruction. The results of the ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) analysis indicated quasi-oscillations of 2.9–4.2 years, 4.5–8.3 years, 11.1–15.4 years, 20–33.3 years, 50.4 years, 159.7 years, and 250 years in this temperature reconstruction which may be associated with ENSO cycles, solar activity, and PDO. Full article
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15 pages, 4850 KiB  
Article
Sinuosity of Atmospheric Circulation over Southeastern China and Its Relationship to Surface Air Temperature and High Temperature Extremes
by Yongdi Wang, Fei Wang and Xinyu Sun
Atmosphere 2021, 12(9), 1139; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12091139 - 4 Sep 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1465
Abstract
Linking sinuosity, a fairly recently developed metric, with high temperature extremes (HTEs) can be both useful and insightful to better understand the physical mechanisms behind HTEs. However, it is not clear whether there exists a relationship between the sinuosity changes and HTE changes [...] Read more.
Linking sinuosity, a fairly recently developed metric, with high temperature extremes (HTEs) can be both useful and insightful to better understand the physical mechanisms behind HTEs. However, it is not clear whether there exists a relationship between the sinuosity changes and HTE changes in present and future climate conditions over southeastern China. In this paper, the anomalous characteristics of the atmospheric circulation are quantified by sinuosity. Three sinuosity metrics are used in this study: individual sinuosity (SIN), aggregate sinuosity (ASIN), and comprehensive sinuosity (CSIN). Furthermore, we examine the relationship between sinuosity changes and HTE changes in present and future climate conditions. ASIN is strongly correlated with surface air temperature (SAT). We find that the influence of individual sinuosity (SIN) at different latitudes on the SAT of southeastern China is different. The SIN of low (middle) latitude isohypses has significant positive (negative) correlations with the SAT of southeastern China. The SIN of high-latitude isohypses is rather limited and can therefore be ignored. The projected relationship between the sinuosity changes and HTE changes in the late 21st century suggests similar results. The change in SAT is related to the changes in climate variables over southeastern China in the future, and these changes increase with the increase in Z500 or V850 and the decrease in U500. Moreover, the frequencies of large (small) comprehensive sinuosity (CSIN) values at low (mid) latitudes will increase. At the end of the 21st century, Z500 isohypses at different latitudes will have an obvious poleward shift. Our results indicate that measuring the aggregate waviness of the midtropospheric flow (via sinuosity) can provide insight regarding HTEs, and the climate model output can be used to examine the future likelihood of increased HTE. Full article
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22 pages, 7890 KiB  
Article
Simulations of the East Asian Winter Monsoon on Subseasonal to Seasonal Time Scales Using the Model for Prediction Across Scales
by Li-Huan Hsu, Dan-Rong Chen, Chou-Chun Chiang, Jung-Lien Chu, Yi-Chiang Yu and Chia-Chun Wu
Atmosphere 2021, 12(7), 865; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12070865 - 3 Jul 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2585
Abstract
The Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS) is used to simulate the East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM) over the 2011–2020 winter. The 45 day hindcasts are made with 30 km horizontal resolution and constructed to a time-lagged ensemble system. The climatology, the major [...] Read more.
The Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS) is used to simulate the East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM) over the 2011–2020 winter. The 45 day hindcasts are made with 30 km horizontal resolution and constructed to a time-lagged ensemble system. The climatology, the major modes of EAWM variability, and the blocking activities are examined. The evaluation results reveal that MPAS can simulate the climatologic characteristics of EAWM reasonably, with a surface cold bias of 4% and a positive rainfall bias of 9% over East Asia. MPAS can perform skillfully in the forecasts of surface temperature probability of East Asia and is more reliable in detecting below normal and above normal events. The features that influence the EAWM variability are also analyzed. MPAS simulates reasonably in the occurrence frequency of blocking high in both locations and duration time. The empirical orthogonal function analysis also shows that MPAS can capture the two major modes of the surface temperature of EAWM. On the other hand, it is also found that a biased sea surface temperature may modify the circulations over the Western Pacific and affect the simulated occurrence frequency of cold events near Taiwan during winter. Full article
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11 pages, 3466 KiB  
Article
Characteristics of Extreme Value Statistics of Annual Maximum Monthly Precipitation in East Asia Calculated Using an Earth System Model of Intermediate Complexity
by Tosiyuki Nakaegawa, Takuro Kobashi and Hirotaka Kamahori
Atmosphere 2020, 11(12), 1273; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11121273 - 25 Nov 2020
Viewed by 2215
Abstract
Extreme precipitation is no longer stationary under a changing climate due to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Nonstationarity must be considered when realistically estimating the amount of extreme precipitation for future prevention and mitigation. Extreme precipitation with a certain return level is [...] Read more.
Extreme precipitation is no longer stationary under a changing climate due to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Nonstationarity must be considered when realistically estimating the amount of extreme precipitation for future prevention and mitigation. Extreme precipitation with a certain return level is usually estimated using extreme value analysis under a stationary climate assumption without evidence. In this study, the characteristics of extreme value statistics of annual maximum monthly precipitation in East Asia were evaluated using a nonstationary historical climate simulation with an Earth system model of intermediate complexity, capable of long-term integration over 12,000 years (i.e., the Holocene). The climatological means of the annual maximum monthly precipitation for each 100-year interval had nonstationary time series, and the ratios of the largest annual maximum monthly precipitation to the climatological mean had nonstationary time series with large spike variations. The extreme value analysis revealed that the annual maximum monthly precipitation with a return level of 100 years estimated for each 100-year interval also presented a nonstationary time series which was normally distributed and not autocorrelated, even with the preceding and following 100-year interval (lag 1). Wavelet analysis of this time series showed that significant periodicity was only detected in confined areas of the time–frequency space. Full article
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19 pages, 7358 KiB  
Article
Summer Westerly Jet in Northern Hemisphere during the Mid-Holocene: A Multi-Model Study
by Chuchu Xu, Mi Yan, Liang Ning and Jian Liu
Atmosphere 2020, 11(11), 1193; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11111193 - 3 Nov 2020
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3303
Abstract
The upper-level jet stream, a narrow band of maximum wind speed in the mid-latitude westerlies, exerts a considerable influence on the global climate by modulating the transport and distribution of momentum, heat and moisture. In this study by using four high-resolution models in [...] Read more.
The upper-level jet stream, a narrow band of maximum wind speed in the mid-latitude westerlies, exerts a considerable influence on the global climate by modulating the transport and distribution of momentum, heat and moisture. In this study by using four high-resolution models in the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project phase 3, the changes of position and intensity of the northern hemisphere westerly jet at 200 hPa in summer during the mid-Holocene (MH), as well as the related mechanisms, are investigated. The four models show similar performance on the westerly jet. At the hemispheric scale, the simulated westerly jet has a poleward shift during the MH compared to the preindustrial period. The warming in arctic and cooling in the tropics during the MH are caused by the orbital changes of the earth and the precipitation changes, and it could lead to the weakened meridional temperature gradient and pressure gradient, which might account for the poleward shift of the westerly jet from the thermodynamic perspective. From the dynamic perspective, two maximum centers of eddy kinetic energy are simulated over the North Pacific and North Atlantic with the north deviation, which could cause the northward movement of the westerly jet. The weakening of the jet stream is associated with the change of the Hadley cell and the meridional temperature gradient. The largest weakening is over the Pacific Ocean where both the dynamic and the thermodynamic processes have weakening effects. The smallest weakening is over the Atlantic Ocean, and it is induced by the offset effects of dynamic processes and thermodynamic processes. The weakening over the Eurasia is mainly caused by the dynamic processes. Full article
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17 pages, 6113 KiB  
Article
The Role of Samalas Mega Volcanic Eruption in European Summer Hydroclimate Change
by Bin Liu, Jian Liu, Liang Ning, Weiyi Sun, Mi Yan, Chen Zhao, Kefan Chen and Xiaoqing Wang
Atmosphere 2020, 11(11), 1182; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11111182 - 2 Nov 2020
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2602
Abstract
In this study, the role of AD 1258 Samalas mega volcanic eruption in the summer hydroclimate change over Europe and the corresponding mechanisms are investigated through multi-member ensemble climate simulation experiments based on the Community Earth System Model (CESM). The results show that [...] Read more.
In this study, the role of AD 1258 Samalas mega volcanic eruption in the summer hydroclimate change over Europe and the corresponding mechanisms are investigated through multi-member ensemble climate simulation experiments based on the Community Earth System Model (CESM). The results show that the CESM simulations are consistent with the reconstructed Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) and the historical records of European climate. Europe experiences significant summer cooling in the first three years after the Samalas mega volcanic eruption, peaking at −3.61 °C, −4.02 °C, and −3.21 °C in year 1 over the whole Europe, Southern Europe, and Northern Europe, respectively. The summer surface air temperature (SAT, °C) changes over the European continent are mainly due to the direct weakening of shortwave solar radiation induced by volcanic aerosol. The summer precipitation over the European continent shows an obvious dipole distribution characteristic of north-south reverse phase. The precipitation increases up to 0.42 mm/d in year 1 over Southern Europe, while it decreases by −0.28 mm/d in year 1 over Northern Europe, respectively. Both simulations and reconstructions show that the centers with the strongest increase in precipitation have always been located in the Balkans and Apennine peninsulas along the Mediterranean coast over Southern Europe, and the centers with the strongest precipitation reduction are mainly located in the British Isles and Scandinavia over northwestern Europe. The negative response of North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) with significant positive sea level pressure (SLP) anomaly in the north and negative SLP anomaly in the south is excited in summer. The low tropospheric wind anomaly caused by the negative phase of NAO in summer affects the water vapor transport to Europe, resulting in the distribution pattern of summer precipitation in Europe, which is drying in the north and wetting in the south. The knowledge gained from this study is crucial to better understand and predict the potential impacts of single mega volcanic eruption on the future summer hydroclimate change in Europe. Full article
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