Regional Variability of Climate Change Hot-Spots in East Asia

The regional climate change index （RCCI） is employed to investigate hot-spots under 21st century global warming over East Asia. The RCCI is calculated on a 1-degree resolution grid from the ensemble of CMIP3 simulations for the B1, AIB, and A2 IPCC emission scenarios. The RCCI over East Asia exhibits marked sub-regional variability. Five sub-regional hot-spots are identified over the area of investigation： three in the northern regions （Northeast China, Mongolia, and Northwest China）, one in eastern China, and one over the Tibetan Plateau. Contributions from different factors to the RCCI are discussed for the sub-regions. Analysis of the temporal evolution of the hot-spots throughout the 21st century shows different speeds of response time to global warming for the different sub-regions. Hot-spots firstly emerge in Northwest China and Mongolia. The Northeast China hot-spot becomes evident by the mid of the 21st century and it is the most prominent by the end of the century. While hot-spots are generally evident in all the 5 sub-regions for the A1B and A2 scenarios, only the Tibetan Plateau and Northwest China hot-spots emerge in the B1 scenario, which has the lowest greenhouse gas （GHG） concentrations. Our analysis indicates that subregional hot-spots show a rather complex spatial and temporal dependency on the GHG concentration and on the different factors contributing to the RCCI.

SIMULATION OF PRESENT CLIMATE OVER EAST ASIA BY A REGIONAL CLIMATE MODEL

A 15-year simulation of climate over East Asia is conducted with the latest version of a regional climate model RegCM3 nested in one-way mode to the ERA40 Re-analysis data. The performance of the model in simulating present climate over East Asia and China is investigated. Results show that RegCM3 can reproduce well the atmospheric circulation over East Asia. The simulation of the main distribution patterns of surface air temperature and precipitation over China and their seasonal cycle/evolution, are basically agree with that of the observation. Meanwhile a general cold bias is found in the simulation. As for the precipitation, the model tends to overestimate the precipitation in northern China while underestimate it in southern China, particularly in winter. In general, the model has better performance in simulating temperature than precipitation.

Diabetes epidemic in the Asia pacific region:has hemoglobin A1C finally earned its place as a diagnostic tool?

Two-third of the world's population lives in the Asia Pacific region where prevalence of diabetes has reached epidemic proportion.With China and India being the most populous nations on the globe,it is believed that over 150 million diabetes reside in the region with more than 95%being of type 2 diabetes mellitus(T2DM).Furthermore,other Pacific islands in the region have high rales of T2DM including Tonga.Fiji.French Polynesia,and Nauru.The latter has the highest prevalence of T2DM per population in the world.Over the past two decades,in Australia and New Zealand,the prevalence of T2DM has more than doubled,mainly amongst the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Maori peoples respectively.With the increasing prevalence of dialietes in the Asia Pacific region coupled with the limited number of resources,use of a reliable and effective mode of diagnosis for T3DVI is warranted.Yet to date,only New Zealand has adopted the American Diabetes Association recommendation of using hemoglobin A1C in the diagnosis of the disease.The aim of this review is to discuss the clinical usefulness of hemoglobin A1C and highlight its diagnostic role in the Asia Pacific region where T2DM is increasingly encountered.

Characteristics of Anthropogenic Sulfate and Carbonaceous Aerosols over East Asia: Regional Modeling and Observation

The authors present spatial and temporal characteristics of anthropogenic sulfate and carbonaceous aerosols over East Asia using a 3-D coupled regional climate-chemistry-aerosol model, and compare the simulation with the limited aerosol observations over the region. The aerosol module consists of SO2, SO4^2-, hydrophobic and hydrophilic black carbon （BC） and organic carbon compounds （OC）, including emission, advections, dry and wet deposition, and chemical production and conversion. The simulated patterns of SO2 are closely tied to its emission rate, with sharp gradients between the highly polluted regions and more rural areas. Chemical conversion （especially in the aqueous phase） and dry deposition remove 60% and 30% of the total SO2 emission, respectively. The SO4^2- shows less horizontal gradient and seasonality than SO2, with wet deposition （60%） and export （27%） being two major sinks. Carbonaceous aerosols are spatially smoother than sulfur species. The aging process transforms more than 80% of hydrophobic BC and OC to hydrophilic components, which are removed by wet deposition （60%） and export （30%）. The simulated spatial and seasonal SO4^2-, BC and OC aerosol concentrations and total aerosol optical depth are generally consistent with the observations in rural areas over East Asia, with lower bias in simulated OC aerosols, likely due to the underestimation of anthropogenic OC emissions and missing treatment of secondary organic carbon. The results suggest that our model is a useful tool for characterizing the anthropogenic aerosol cycle and for assessing its potential climatic and environmental effects in future studies.

Downscaled climate change projections for the Hindu Kush Himalayan region using CORDEX South Asia regional climate models

This study assessed the regional climate models (RCMs) employed in the Coordinated Regional climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) South Asia framework to investigate the qualitative aspects of future change in seasonal mean near surface air temperature and precipitation over the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region. These RCMs downscaled a subset of atmosphere ocean coupled global climate models (AOGCMs) in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) to higher 50 km spatial resolution over a large domain covering South Asia for two representation concentration pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) future scenarios. The analysis specifically examined and evaluated multi-model and multi-scenario climate change projections over the hilly sub-regions within HKH for the near-future (2036e2065) and far-future (2066e2095) periods. The downscaled multi-RCMs provide relatively better confidence than their driving AOGCMs in projecting the magnitude of seasonal warming for the hilly sub-region within the Karakoram and northwestern Himalaya, with higher projected change of 5.4
C during winter than of 4.9
C during summer monsoon season by the end of 21st century under the high-end emissions (RCP8.5) scenario. There is less agreement among these RCMs on the magnitude of the projected warming over the other sub-regions within HKH for both seasons, particularly associated with higher RCM uncertainty for the hilly sub-region within the central Himalaya. The downscaled multi-RCMs show good consensus and low RCM uncertainty in projecting that the summer monsoon precipitation will intensify by about 22% in the hilly subregion within the southeastern Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau for the far-future period under the RCP8.5 scenario. There is low confidence in the projected changes in the summer monsoon and winter season precipitation over the central Himalaya and in the Karakoram and northwestern Himalaya due to poor consensus and moderate to high RCM uncertainty among the downscaled multi-RCMs. Finally, the RCM related uncertainty is found to be large for the projected changes in seasonal temperature and precipitation over the hilly sub-regions within HKH by the end of this century, suggesting that improving the regional processes and feedbacks in RCMs are essential for narrowing the uncertainty, and for providing more reliable regional climate change projections suitable for impact assessments in HKH region.

New Political Dynamism in Central Asia:Security Issues and Prospects for Regional Cooperation

The article examines the issues of regional security and prospects of cooperation between the countries of Central Asia in the context of a new world order. As factors of sustainable development and security, the author considers the following issues: preservation of the geopolitical balance in Central Asia; development of a multivariate system of transportation and communication corridors; cardinal increase in the efficiency of counterterrorism and religious extremism; a solution to the Afghan problem; and resolution to the problems of fair water use and ecology in the region.

Hepatitis D: Scenario in the Asia-Pacifi c region

Hepatitis D virus (HDV) infection is present worldwide and affects all age groups. Around 18 million people are estimated to be infected with HDV. An important trend in HDV infection is global decline. HDV prevalence has decreased significantly in Europe since the 1970s and 1980s when it was f irst reported. The Asia-Pacif ic region now seems to be where HDV is a major health concern. There is a lack of available data from most of the countries from this region; hence, the true status of HDV cannot be determined. In South Asia, most of the countries have conditions that are favorable for the spread of hepatitis B and other related infections. Countries like Pakistan and Iran have shown an increase in HDV prevalence over a period of time. Other countries and region like China, Turkey, Australia, Japan, India and Taiwan, some of which had very high HDV prevalence in the past, have shown a decline in the incidence, but high prevalence persists in some. Intravenous drug abusers, homosexual men and women, prostitutes, and people on hemodialysis are the groups with very high HDV prevalence.

Assessing the sensitivity of RegCM4 to cumulus and ocean surface schemes over the Southeast Asia domain of the coordinated regional climate downscaling experiment

Multi-year experiments are conducted using the most recent version of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics regional climate model RegCM4(version 4.7) to customize its performance over Southeast Asia - a region with few RCMs applied to date. The model is driven by ERA-Interim reanalysis data at a grid spacing of 25 km using the CORDEX(Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment) Southeast Asia domain. The authors focus on comparing the convection schemes of Emanuel and Tiedtke(Tiedtke-1) and Tiedtke with effects of sea surface evaporation introduced(Tiedtke-2). The authors find that, for temperature over land, the model shows reasonable performance in reproducing the present-day climatology in both December–January–February(DJF) and June–July–August(JJA) in all the experiments. Meanwhile, cold biases prevail in both seasons, although portions of warm bias exist in DJF. For precipitation, the spatial pattern and amount, as well as seasonal evolution, are in general reproduced well in the experiments.Better performances of Tiedtke-1 and Tiedtke-2 are evident compared to Emanuel, particularly over ocean. Thereby, the optimal configuration of Reg CM4.7 for future climate change simulations over the region is identified as using the Tiedtke scheme with spray effects considered, along with the default settings for other physical parameterizations.

A Modified Double-Moment Bulk Microphysics Scheme Geared toward the East Asian Monsoon Region

Representation of cloud microphysical processes is one of the key aspects of numerical models.An improved double-moment bulk cloud microphysics scheme(named IMY)was created based on the standard Milbrandt-Yau(MY)scheme in the Weather Research and Forecasting(WRF)model for the East Asian monsoon region(EAMR).In the IMY scheme,the shape parameters of raindrops,snow particles,and cloud droplet size distributions are variables instead of fixed constants.Specifically,the shape parameters of raindrop and snow size distributions are diagnosed from their respective shape-slope relationships.The shape parameter for the cloud droplet size distribution depends on the total cloud droplet number concentration.In addition,a series of minor improvements involving detailed cloud processes have also been incorporated.The improved scheme was coupled into the WRF model and tested on two heavy rainfall cases over the EAMR.The IMY scheme is shown to reproduce the overall spatial distribution of rainfall and its temporal evolution,evidenced by comparing the modeled results with surface gauge observations.The simulations also successfully capture the cloud features by using satellite and ground-based radar observations as a reference.The IMY has yielded simulation results on the case studies that were comparable,and in ways superior to MY,indicating that the improved scheme shows promise.Although the simulations demonstrated a positive performance evaluation for the IMY scheme,continued experiments are required to further validate the scheme with different weather events.

Seismic Hazard Assessment in the Boundary Region of Indo-China:First Phase of Implementation of the Global Seismic Hazard Assessment Program (GSHAP) in Continental Asia

The primary goal of the demonstration project endorsed by the Scientific and Technical Committee for IDNDR in 1992 is to ensure that national agencies are able to assess seismic hazard in a regionally coordinated fashion by using advanced methods.China,as a Regional Center of Central Southern Asia,has contacted with countries of the region to realistically practice seismic hazard assessments of Continental Asia.A test area located in the collision boundary between the Indian and Eurasian plates was chosen to examine the seismic hazard assessment approach in the regional coordinates.The seismotectonics and three versions of seismic sources of the test area are described in this paper and under the Global Seismic Hazard Assessment Program(GSHAP),guidelines an earthquake catalogue of the test area was assembled.Because of the incompleteness of earthquake data in different countries,we adopt different time windows for different magnitude intervals in order to obtain the seismicity parameters of sources.By

ANALYSIS ON EFFECT OF SOUTH ASIA HIGH ON MID-SUMMER EXTREME DROUGHT AND FLOOD IN SICHUAN-CHONGQING REGION

NCEP/NCAR data are utilized to analyze an extreme flood year(1998) and an extreme dry year(2006) in the Sichuan-Chongqing region(SCR) and the results are as follows. The positive divergence of South Asia High(SAH) is stronger in the flood year; the position of the ridge line of SAH is southward compared with the annual average; Western Pacific Subtropical High(WPSH) extends westward and its ridge line is southward. In the drought year, the positive divergence of SAH is weaker, its ridge line is northward, and the position of WPSH is also northward. As shown in the dynamics, in drought(flood) years, negative(positive) vorticity advection in the upper atmosphere can cause the atmosphere to ascend(descend), and anomalous circulation of SAH displays divergence(convergence), and anomalous circulation of the lower atmosphere shows convergence(divergence). Thermal structure of the atmosphere shows that there is warm(cold) temperature advection in the lower atmosphere, and the vertical distribution of diabetic heating causes SAH's local circulation to display convergence(divergence) and affects vertical motion of the lower atmosphere circulation eventually. To some extent, the two extreme years in the SCR is closely related to the vertical motion of atmosphere circulation and the variation of such vertical motion is caused by differences of interactions between SAH and lower atmosphere circulations.

Regional Endeavours Rrequired to Deal With Water Vulnerability in East and Southeast Asia

Booming economic development during the past decades has made the East and Southeast Asian region one of the most dynamic economies in the world and brought about rapid urbanization. It is expected that Asia will account for 12 of the world’s 25 cities with population exceeding 10 million by 2000. Tokyo will have more than 27 million people and Shanghai and Jakarta will each have more than 20 million people. Demand for water supply, as a result, will drastically increase. Data show that most of the East and Southeast Asian countries are faced with serious water shortage and contamination, in particular in the urbanized areas. The vulnerability of water supply constituents one of the greatest threats to the sustainable socio economic development of the region. Great efforts have been made to conserve both surface and subsurface water resources, to protect water from contamination and to use water in an efficient way. In addition to the establishment of administrative agencies under the governments in individual countries, a number of regional and country wide projects have been launched for a solution to ease the water vulnerability. The Coordinating Committee for Coastal and Offshore Geoscience Programmes in East and Southeast Asia (CCOP), an intergovernmental organization of the region, has devoted itself to coordinating regional endeavours to solve applied geoscientific problems through technology transfer, human resources development and regional data compilation. The regional map series and related databases produced by CCOP have provided useful information on regional geological background, which is also essential for the solution of water problems. However, it is obvious that regional efforts are not enough to meet the challenges we are faced with. In addition to raising public awareness and governmental concerns, advanced technologies, in particular those used in the petroleum industry to deal with oil and gas, a sort of fluid resources similar to water, must be adopted to the water supply industry. Since 1996, CCOP has, in cooperation with the developed countries, been working on a project called Petrowater. The Project aims at using the technology and infrastructures related to the oil industry to the water supply industry.

Boao Forum——Highlights of Regional Cooperation in Asia

THE world is currently experiencing unprecedented transformation. The process of economic globalization has undergone profound changes, the global multilateral mechanism is undergoing deep adjustments, and the existing international system and the global order need to be profoundly transformed and remolded.

The Inspiration of European Integration to Asia-Pacific Regional Cooperation

The two different developing trends in current Asia are in sharp contrast with each other. One is relying on military means to solve regional conflicts, the other is coordinating and stabilizing inter-state relations through economic integration. The latter is undoubtedly the target to be sought after. Summarizing Europe’s experience is conducive to reaching the goal.

The Third Conference on Peace，Disarmament and Symbiosis in the Asia－Pacific Region towards 21st Century

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From Going Beyond the “Nation-State” to the Construction of the “East Asia Community”? Myths About “East Asia New Regionalism”

With the deepening of globalization,geographically speaking,East Asian countries have proceeded from their respective realist positions and tried to promote the successful practice of economic cooperation between countries after the Cold War into a discussion of new regionalism in East Asia and Asia-Pacificism.Although the prototype of the“East Asia Community”led by Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN)gradually emerged,the successful practice of the East Asia Summit proved that the low-binding regional integration model led by ASEAN has a high probability of becoming a classic sample of the“East Asia Community”.It not only maintains regional stability,promotes regional cooperation,shapes regional norms,but also builds a collective identity within the region.However,in today’s world,isolationism which takes the supremacy of national interests as the supremacy has risen.It is difficult to internalize the value identity into a super-national model that breaks through the principles of realism,breakthroughs in interests,and the power framework.The thorny issues pose various challenges to the nation-states in the region trying to integrate into regional integration.The openness of East Asian regionalism has led to the persistent illness of its generalization.In the context of insufficient political mutual trust among regional countries,intensified competition among major powers,and continued weakening of ASEAN leadership,it is often prone to controversy and doubt when proposing new cooperation initiatives or ideas.The idea of the“East Asia Community”that once guided East Asian cooperation and was temporarily ignored now is still the most realistic choice.Although the theoretical construction and practical roads of East Asian regionalism are full of thorns,difficulties coexist with opportunities.With the extensive participation of countries in the region,the optimization and reconstruction of the East Asian cooperation model will be worth looking forward to.

The Central Asian Regional Security Complex Revisited:Understanding the Implications of the US Retreat From Afghanistan

On February 29,2020,President Donald Trump announced the United States signed a peace agreement with the Taliban,signifying the United States‟intention of leaving Afghanistan in the near future.Though the global pandemic has altered US withdrawal plans,the question still remains:What will become of the Central Asian regional security complex following America‟s exit?Buffered by the presence of the United States since 2001,the Central Asian republics now once again find themselves at a crossroads to either rely on individual defense services or to develop increased military cooperation with interested states.Recognizing Central Asia‟s history of collaboration among its regional and near-regional countries,I argue that the Central Asian Republics of Afghanistan,Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan,Tajikistan,Turkmenistan,and Uzbekistan will seek to develop stronger security ties with neighboring regional security complexes(RSCs),namely the South Asian,Russian,and Chinese RSCs.With decreased American influence,each of the states in these RSCs is rushing to fill the void of influence in order to capitalize on Central Asia‟s geostrategic position in Eurasia as well as secure itself from the threat of non-state actors still prevalent in the region.I further argue that the states in the Central Asian RSC additionally seek these same benefits and security,but receive them to a much lesser extent than their more powerful regional neighbors.Understanding how the American withdrawal from Afghanistan will impact Central Asian RSC relations can provide insight into how great power vacuums are filled both by great powers and regional powers alike.

Strengthening Exchanges and Cooperation in the Northeast Asia Region Follows the Trend of the Times——Sidelights of the 10^(th) Northeast Asia Youth Forum

The 10thNortheast Asia Youth Forum,with the theme of China-ROK-Japan Youth Employment Guidance,sponsored by Moral Re-Armament/Initiatives of Change(MRA/IC)-Korea was held in Seoul and Cheonan from August 12 to 17.Seventy five college students from 37 universities sent by China International Youth Exchange Center,Moral Re-Armament/Initiatives of Change(MRA/IC)-Korea and Japan Society attended the Forum.Lee Boksil,Vice-Minister of Ministry of