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Modelling the effect of soil moisture variability on summer precipitation variability over East Asia
Author(s) -
Li Zhongxian,
Zhou Tianjun,
Chen Haishan,
Ni Donghong,
Zhang RongHua
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
international journal of climatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.58
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-0088
pISSN - 0899-8418
DOI - 10.1002/joc.4023
Subject(s) - climatology , precipitation , environmental science , forcing (mathematics) , atmosphere (unit) , plateau (mathematics) , latitude , climate model , east asia , atmospheric sciences , china , climate change , meteorology , geography , geology , mathematical analysis , oceanography , mathematics , geodesy , archaeology
ABSTRACT The potential role of surface soil moisture ( SSM ) in improving the simulation of interannual East Asian summer precipitation is investigated using a coupled land‐atmosphere climate model, the Community Atmosphere Model version 3 ( CAM3 ). Forced by specified observational sea surface temperature ( SST ), two ensemble simulations for 22 boreal‐summer seasons (1979–2000) are conducted, one with interannually varying SSM ( SSM inter ) forcing and another with climatological SSM ( SSM clim ) forcing. Results show that, relative to the SSM clim run, interannual variability of East Asian summer precipitation is better simulated in the SSM inter run over the mid‐ and high‐latitudes of East Asia, especially in northwest China, where the correlation coefficient between precipitation simulated and observed from the Climate Prediction Center Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP) is increased from 0.12 to 0.56 during 1979–2000. Meanwhile, positive relationships between anomalies of local soil evaporation and summer precipitation in northwest China can be better reproduced in the SSM inter run than in the SSM clim run. Possible mechanisms for the improved simulations of the interannual summer precipitation variability in northwest China are analysed; the improvement is resulted from the reasonable reproduction of anomalous atmospheric circulation in Siberia and Iranian plateau.