Impact of the western North Pacific subtropical high on the East Asian monsoon precipitation and the Indian Ocean precipitation in the boreal summertime

Abstract

The western North Pacific subtropical high (WNPSH) is a crucial component of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) system and significantly influences the precipitation in East Asia. In this study, distinguished role of WNPSH on the EASM and Indian Ocean monsoon (IOM) are investigated. Based on the boreal summer mean field of 850-hPa geopotential height and its interannual variability, the WNPSH index (WNPSHI) is defined by the areaaveraged geopotential height over the region [110°–150°E, 15°–30°N]. The WNPSHI is significantly related to the precipitation over the East Asian monsoon (EAM) region [105°–150°E, 30°–40°N] and IOM region [70°–105°E, 5°–15°N]. Rainfalls over these two regions have good correlation with WNPSH developments and the geopotential height fields at 850 hPa related to the EAM precipitation and IOM precipitation have remarkably different teleconnection patterns in boreal summer. These features exhibit that EAM and IOM precipitations have different type of development processes associated with different type of WNPSH each other. Focusing on the relationships among the EAM precipitation, IOM precipitation, and the WNPSH variabilities, we assume that WNPSH and EAM precipitation are usually fluctuated simultaneously through the sea surface temperature (SST)-subtropical ridge-monsoon rainfall feedback, whereas the IOM precipitation varies through the different process. To clarify the relationships among WNPSH, EAM, and IOM, two cases are selected. The first one is the case that all of WNPSH, EAM, and IOM are in phase (WE(+)I(+)), and the second one is the case that WNPSH and EAM are in phase and WNPSH/EAM and IOM is out of phase (WE(+)I(−)). These two cases are connected to the thermal forcing associated with SST anomalies over the eastern Pacific and Indian Ocean. This different thermal forcing induces the change in circulation fields, and then anomalous circulation fields influence the moisture convergence over Asian monsoon regions interactively. Therefore, the monsoon rainfall may be changed according to the thermal conditions over the tropics.