Abstract ▼ AI-Helper

The Asian summer monsoon has a profound social and economic impact in East Asia and its surrounding countries. The monsoon is basically a response of the atmosphere to the differential heating between the land mass of the Asian continent and the adjacent oceans. The atmospheric response, however, is...

The Asian summer monsoon has a profound social and economic impact in East Asia and its surrounding countries. The monsoon is basically a response of the atmosphere to the differential heating between the land mass of the Asian continent and the adjacent oceans. The atmospheric response, however, is quite complicated due to the interactions between the atmospheric heat sources, land-sea contrast, and topography, The occurrence of extreme summertime floods in Korea, Japan, and China in 1998 and 1999 has highlighted the range of variability of the East Asian summertime monsoon circulation and spurred interest in investigating the cause of such extreme variability. While ENSO is often considered a prime mechanism responsible for the unusual hydrological disasters in East Asia, understanding of the connection between ENSO and the East Asian monsoon is hampered by their dynamic complexities. Along with a recent phenomenon of weather abnormalities observed in many parts of the globe, Korea has seen its share of increased weather abnormalities such as the record-breaking heavy rainfalls due to a series of flash floods in the summers of 1998 and 1999, following devastating Yangtze river floods in China. A clear regime shift is found in the tropospheric mean temperature in the northern hemisphere middle latitudes and the surface temperature over the Asian continent during the summer with a sudden warming since 1977. Either decadal climate variation or climate regime shift in the Asian continent is evident and may have altered the characteristics of the East Asian summer monsoon. Considering the summertime rainfall amount in Korea is overall increased lately, the 1998/99 heavy rainfalls may not be isolated episodes related only to ENSO, but could be a part of long-term climate variation. The record-breaking heavy summer rainfalls in Korea may not be direct impact of ENSO. Instead, the effects of decadal climate variation and ENSO may be coupled to each other and also to the East Asian summer monsoon system, while their individual impacts are difficult to separate.