Impact of spring land-surface conditions over the Tibetan Plateau on the early summer Asian monsoon using an AGCM large ensemble

Abstract

AbstractInfluence of land-surface memory effects over the Tibetan Plateau on the Asian summer monsoon has long been studied, but not quantified because of the difficulty of extracting only these effects from observational data. This study examines the impact of spring land-surface conditions, including surface air temperature (SAT) and snow cover, over the Tibetan Plateau and its surrounding regions on the early stage of the Asian summer monsoon using large-ensemble experiments produced by an atmospheric global climate model (AGCM). The results show that the above-normal SAT over and around the Tibetan Plateau in May can enhance June monsoon circulation without the sea surface temperature (SST) forcing. The physical mechanism behind this involves warmed surface air over the plateau enhancing the north–south SAT gradient, leading to strengthening the Asian summer monsoon circulation and precipitation. Inter-ensemble correlation analysis indicated that SAT warming over the plateau is clearly associated with upper-tropospheric anti-cyclonic circulation anomalies in May. Also, although winter land-surface signals do not persist until late spring, SAT anomalies in March tend to persist until May, explaining 10–20% of the total SAT variance in May. Interestingly, the spring SAT impacts on June monsoon circulations vary interannually, indicating that the contribution of the land–atmosphere (L–A) coupling process to interannual monsoon variability differs from year to year. Active L–A coupling years tend to coincide with cooler SSTs with anomalous low-level divergence and upper-level convergence over and around the Maritime continent, implying that SST forcing is associated with the L–A coupling strength. Specifically, in May of the developing stage of monsoon circulation, the weak Walker circulation over the equatorial and northern Indian Ocean and undeveloped monsoon circulation are suitable for the L–A coupling to influence the development of the monsoon circulation effectively. However, the well-known oceanic events, such as El Ni$${\widetilde{n}}$$ n ~ o, are found to be less connected with the interannual L–A coupling variations.