Modeling impacts of East Asian Ocean-Land thermal contrast on spring southwesterly winds and rainfall in eastern China

Using the National Centers for Environmental Prediction–National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP–NCAR) reanalysis dataset, the NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center’s merged analysis of precipitation, and the MM5v3 Meso-scale Model, the impacts of surface temperature differences between the East Asian land and its adjacent oceans on spring southwesterly winds and rainfall over eastern China are studied. The modeling results show that the temperature differences exert strong influence on the occurrence of the southwesterly winds and rainfall over southern China and their northward advances. When surface temperature increases over the land and decreases over the oceans, the temperature gradient with a winter feature earlier changes toward the gradient with a summer feature. Both the low-pressure system east of the Tibetan Plateau and the subtropical high-pressure system over the western Pacific strengthen, accompanying with the strengthening of the lower-tropospheric southwesterly winds over eastern China. Accordingly, the upward motion increases over the Yangtze-Huaihe River (YHR) valleys and decreases over southern China, leading to an increase of spring rainfall over the YHR valleys and a decrease over southern China. Thus, the rain belt over eastern China appears over the YHR valleys but not over southern China. Under a weaker condition of the spring thermal contrast, the rain belt does not occur over eastern China. When the spring thermal contrast pronouncedly strengthens, the rain belt over southern China may advance northward into the YHR valleys during spring, though there is no onset of the tropical monsoon over the South China Sea. This forms a rain belt similar to that of the YHR valleys during the summer Meiyu period.