Reproducibility and Future Projection of the Midwinter Storm-Track Activity over the Far East in the CMIP3 Climate Models in Relation to "Haru-Ichiban" over Japan

Abstract

A reanalysis dataset is used to establish the relationship between the year-to-year fluctuations in the midwinter storm-track activity over the Far East measured by poleward heat flux associated with subweekly disturbances and the occurrence of the first spring storm with strong southerly winds over Japan (Haru-Ichiban). Our analysis reveals that its early (delayed) occurrence tends to follow the enhanced (suppressed) winter storm-track activity with less (more) apparent minimum in midwinter in the course of the seasonal march. A metric is defined on the basis of the eddy heat flux to measure the reproducibility of the particular seasonal march of the Far East storm-track activity simulated in each of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3 climate models under the present climate. Under a particular global warming scenario, ensemble projection based only on the several models that show the highest reproducibility of the storm-track activity measured with the particular metric indicates that the future enhancement is likely in the midwinter storm-track activity associated with the weakening of the East Asian winter monsoon, implying that Haru-Ichiban is likely to occur earlier in the late 21st century than in the 20th century.