Intercomparison of the Summertime Subtropical High from the ERA-40 and over East Eurasia and the western North Pacific

An intercomparison of summertime （JJA）subtropical geopotential heights from the ERA-40 and NCEP/NCAR reanalysis is specifically conducted over East Eurasia and the western North Pacific. The NCEP/NCAR is obviously lower than the ERA-40 in the mid-to-lower troposphere in most regions of East Eurasia before the mid-1970s, but becomes higher than the ERA-40 after the mid-1970s and thus demonstrates stronger increased trends during the period of 1958-2001. Both reanalyses are lower than the observations in most regions of China. The NCEP/NCAR especially shows tremendously systematic lower values before the mid-1960s and displays abrupt changes before the 1970s. Several indices of the western North Pacific subtropical high （WNPSH）, calculated from both reanalyzed summer geopotential heights, also reveal that the variation trend of the NCEP/NCAR is stronger than that of the ERA-40 in the mid-to-lower troposphere from 1958 to 2001. Through singular value decomposition （SVD） analysis, the summer geopotential heights at 500 hPa from the ERA-40 are better than the NCEP/NCAR counterparts at interacting with the precipitation over the East Asian monsoon region. The results indicate that the NCEP/NCAR in the mid-and-lower troposphere may overestimate interdecadal changes and should be used cautiously to study the relationship between the WNPSH and precipitation ove ther East Asia Monsoon region before the mid-1970s.

Comparison of Beijing MST Radar and Radiosonde Horizontal Wind Measurements

To determine the performance and data accuracy of the 50 MHz Beijing Mesosphere-Stratosphere-Troposphere （MST） radar, comparisons of radar measured horizontal winds in the height range 3-25 km with radiosonde observations were made during 2012. A total of 427 profiles and 15 210 data pairs were compared. There was very good agreement between the two types of measurement. Standard deviations of difference （mean difference） for wind direction, wind speed, zonal wind and meridional wind were 24.86° （0.77°）, 3.37 （-0.44）, 3.33 （-0.32） and 3.58 （-0.25） m s^-1, respectively. The annual standard deviations of differences for wind speed were within 2.5-3 m s^-1 at all heights apart from 10-15 km, the area of strong winds, where the values were 3-4 m s^-1. The relatively larger differences were mainly due to wind field variations in height regions with larger wind speeds, stronger wind shear and the quasi-zero wind layer. A lower MST radar SNR and a lower percentage of data pairs compared will also result in larger inconsistencies. Importantly, this study found that differences between the MST radar and radiosonde observations did not simply increase when balloon drift resulted in an increase in the real-time distance between the two instruments, but also depended on spatiotemporal structures and their respective positions in the contemporary synoptic systems. In this sense, the MST radar was shown to be a unique observation facility for atmospheric dynamics studies, as well as an operational meteorological observation system with a high temporal and vertical resolution.

Intercomparison of the Summertime Subtropical High from the ERA-40 and over East Eurasia and the western North Pacific

On Page 119 of the printed edition （Issue 1, Vol. 26）, the paper title should be ＂Intercomparison of the Summertime Subtropical High from the ERA-40 and NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis over East Eurasia and the Western North Pacific＂. The editorial office and the authors are sincerely sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Cultural Image of Animal Words

This paper,after introducing the definition and forms of cultural image,focuses on the detailed comparison and analysis of cultural image of animal words both in English and in Chinese from four aspects,that is,same animal word,same cultural image;same animal word,different cultural images;different animal words,same cultural image;different animal words,different cultural images.