Model Study on the Interannual Variability of Asian Winter Monsoon and Its Influence

The interannual variation of Asian winter (NE) monsoon and its influence is studied using the long-term inte-gration of Max-Plank Institute ECHAM3 (T42 LI9) model The simulation well reproduces the main features of the climatological mean Asian winter monsoon and shows pronounced difference of atmospheric circulation between strong and weak winter monsoon and for the consecutive seasons to follow. Most striking is the appearance and persistence of an anomalous cyclonic flow over the western Pa?cific and enhanced Walker circulation for strong winter monsoon in agreement with the observation. The contrast in summer rainfall patterns of both East China and India can also be discerned in the simulation Comparison of three sets of experiments with different SST shows that the forcing from the anomalies or global SST makes a major contribution to the interannual variability of Asian winter monsoon and, in particular, to the interseasonal persistence of the salient features of circulation. The SSTA over the tropical western Pacific also plays an important part of its own in modulating the Walker circulation and the extratropical flow patterns The apparent effect of strong NE monsoon is to enhance the convection over the tropical western Pacific. This effect, on the one hand, leads to a strengthening of SE trades to the east and extra westerly flow to the west, thus favorable to maintaining a specific pattern of SSTA. On the other hand, the thermal forcing associated with the SSTA acts to strengthen the extratropical flow pattern which is, in turn, conducive to stronger monsoon activity The result seems to suggest a certain self-sustained regime in the air-sea system, which is characterized by two related interactions, namely the air-sea and tropical-extratropical interactions with intermittent outburst of NE cold surge as linkage There is a connection between the strength of the Asian winter monsoon and the precipitation over China in the following summer. Links between these two variabilities are mainly through SST anomalies but snow over Asia is a contributing factor as well