The Time–Space Structure of the Asian–Pacific Summer Monsoon: A Fast Annual Cycle View*

Abstract

Abstract Despite the seemingly intricate and multifold time–space structure of the mean Asian–Pacific summer monsoon (APSM), its complexity can be greatly reduced once the significance of fast annual cycles has been recognized and put into perspective. The APSM climatology is characterized by a slowly evolving seasonal transition (slow annual cycle) superposed by pronounced singularities in the intraseasonal timescale, termed the “fast annual cycle” in this study. The fast annual cycles show nonrepetitive features from one episode to another, which are often divided by abrupt change events. The APSM fast annual cycles are composed mainly of two monsoon outbreaks, each marking a distinctive dry–wet cycle. The first cycle spans from the middle of May to early July and the second cycle from late July to early September. When the first cycle reaches its peak in mid-June, a slingshot-like convection zone, described as the grand-onset pattern, rules an area from the Arabian Sea to the Indochina Peninsula then b...