
Evolutionary characteristics of the atmospheric circulations for frequent and infrequent dust storm springs in northern China and the detection of potential future seasonal forecast signals
Author(s) -
Gao Tao,
Han Jingwei
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
meteorological applications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.672
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1469-8080
pISSN - 1350-4827
DOI - 10.1002/met.163
Subject(s) - geopotential height , climatology , polar vortex , subtropical ridge , storm , environmental science , northern hemisphere , atmospheric circulation , trough (economics) , dust storm , westerlies , extratropical cyclone , plateau (mathematics) , anticyclone , subtropics , hindcast , atmospheric sciences , geology , troposphere , geography , precipitation , meteorology , mathematical analysis , economics , macroeconomics , fishery , biology , mathematics
The evolutionary characteristics of dust storms in spring in northern China springs are determined by synthesizing the previous patterns and analyzing the geopotential height at 500 hPa. Some potential seasonal predictors are found through detecting the atmospheric circulation factors in both qualitative and quantitative analyses. Based on the frequency series obtained through comprehensive investigations of dust storm events which occurred from 1970 to 2005, two sample sets, each containing 6 years, are selected to represent the most frequent and infrequent occurrences of spring dust storms. For the first set, most of the West Pacific subtropical highs in the previous summer are relatively small and weak compared to those in normal years. In the previous winter, the mid‐latitude region of the Eurasian continent is strongly controlled by a large and active low system, simultaneously with a strong and westerly positioned trough over East Asia. The northern hemisphere polar vortex, in general, changes from weak to strong with a large area from the previous winter to the current spring. The geopotential height over the Tibetan Plateau keeps a lower than normal value with a relatively strong India‐Burma trough from the preceding summer in to the spring. For the second set, the evolution displays opposite features. Furthermore, by using a bootstrapping technique, indices of the atmospheric circulation elements are detected quantitatively. The forecast skill score of the 36 year hindcast (1970–2005) indicates that those indices can provide forecast signals in certain situations for spring dust storm seasonal predictions in northern China. Copyright © 2009 Royal Meteorological Society