The different effects of sea surface temperature and aerosols on climate in East Asia during spring

Abstract

In this study, we used the NCAR CAM3.0 model to study the climate effects of both decadal global Sea Surface Temperature (SST) changing and the increasing aerosol concentration in East Asia in boreal spring. In the decadal SST changing experiment, a prominent sea surface cyclone anomaly occurred west of the Northwest Pacific warming SST. The cyclone anomaly is conductive to anomalous rising motion and more rainfall over the Northwest Pacific and southeast coast areas of China, but less rainfall in central China. Caused by the only aerosol concentration increasing, the change of climate in East Asia is totally different from that induced by the regime shift of SST around 1976/77 with the same model. The sulfate and black carbon aerosol concentrations were doubled respectively and synchronously in East Asia (20°–50°N, 100°–150°E) to investigate the climate effects of these two major aerosol types in three experiments. The results show that, in all three aerosol concentration changing experiments, the rainfall during boreal spring increases in North China and decreases in central China. It’s worth noting that in the DTWO experiment, the rainfall diminishes in central China while it increases in the north and southeast coast areas of China, which is similar to observations. From the vertical profile between 110°E and 120°E, it is found that sulfate and black carbon aerosols first change the temperature of lower troposphere owing to their direct radiative effect, and then induce secondary meridional circulation anomaly through the different dynamic mechanisms involved, and at last generate precipitation and surface temperature anomalous patterns mentioned above.