The Role of Land--sea Distribution and Orography in the Asian Monsoon. Part I: Land--sea Distribution

Abstract: A number of AGCM simulations were performed by including various land--sea distributions (LSDs), such as meridional LSDs, zonal LSDs, tropical large-scale LSDs, and subcontinental-scale LSDs, to identify their effects on the Asian monsoon. In seven meridional LSD experiments with the continent/ocean located to the north/south of a certain latitude, the LSDs remain identical except the southern coastline is varied from 40o to 4oN in intervals of 5.6o. In the experiments with the coastline located to the north of 21oN, no monsoon can be found in the subtropical zone. In contrast, a summer monsoon is simulated when the continent extends to the south of 21oN. Meanwhile, the earlier onset and stronger intensity of the tropical summer monsoon are simulated with the southward extension of the tropical continent. The effects of zonal LSDs were investigated by including the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean into the model based on the meridional LSD run with the coastline located at 21oN. The results indicate that the presence of a mid-latitude zonal LSD induces a strong zonal pressure gradient between the continent and ocean, which in turn results in the formation of an East Asian subtropical monsoon. The comparison of simulations with and without the Indian Peninsula and Indo-China Peninsula reveals that the presence of two peninsulas remarkably strengthens the southwesterly winds over South Asia due to the tropical asymmetric heating between the tropical land and sea. The tropical zonal LSD plays a crucial role in the formation of cumulus convection.

Keywords:
• land--sea distribution,
• Asian monsoon,
• rainfall,
• circulation,
• seasonal transition