Drivers of East Asian summer monsoon variability: Global oceans and the Tibetan Plateau
Anmin Duan, Guoxiong Wu, Bin Wang, Andrew G. Turner, Jun Hu, Wenting Hu, Ping Zhang, Die Hu, Yuheng Tang
Abstract
The East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) profoundly influences the hydroclimate, ecosystems, and water resources of a densely populated region in Asia. Anomalous EASM can lead to floods, droughts, significant economic losses, and social disruption in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Unlike the Indian and African monsoons, the EASM is shaped by both tropical and extratropical climate systems, including tropical oceanic modes, cross-equatorial airflows, the Madden-Julian Oscillation, the thermal condition of the Tibetan Plateau, the South Asia High, and the mid-latitude westerly jet. This complexity makes the EASM a challenging system to understand and predict. The variability of the EASM spans various time scales, with interannual variations contributing significantly to the total variance compared to decadal variability.