Contributions of External Forcing and Internal Climate Variability to Changes in the Summer Surface Air Temperature over East Asia

• Summer mean (June, July, and August) surface air temperature (SSAT) in East Asia during the period from 1958 to 2001 has shown a warming. However, the relative contributions of external forcing (EF) and internal climate variability (ICV) to the SSAT changes over East Asia remain unclear. In this study, a new approach is applied to estimate the changes in the SSAT determined by the effects of EF and ICV over East Asia during the period from 1958 to 2001. Reanalysis data as well as simulated results from both global atmosphere-ocean coupled model outputs and a regional climate model (RCM) are used for this approach. The observed SSATs over East Asia have undergone a decreasing trend from 1958 to 1972 (-0.14 degrees C decade(-1), p < 0.01) and an increasing trend after 1972 (0.24 degrees C decade(-1), p < 0.01). While these features are not captured by the reanalysis studied here, they are reproduced when the reanalysis output is downscaled using an RCM. The effects of the EF and the ICV on the SSAT can be separated based on the RCM downscaling simulation. The results show that the SSAT with EF displayed significant warming over most regions of East Asia, whereas the SSAT with ICV mainly exhibited cooling over East Asia. Furthermore, EF mainly influenced the decadal changes of the SSAT, whereas the ICV mainly influenced the interannual changes in the SSAT over East Asia. The interannual changes of the SSAT over East Asia that were influenced by the ICV are mainly manifested as the combined effects of the large-scale ocean-atmosphere circulations, which expressed 79% explanatory power on the SSAT changes.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Meteorologi och atmosfärforskning (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Klimatforskning (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Climate Research (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Regional effects

Downscaling

Regional models

Climate variability

indian-ocean dipole

model intercomparison project

south china sea

wind-speed

regional climate

land-use

cover change

arctic

oscillation

monsoon rainfall

precipitation

Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences

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