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Understanding the East Asian winter monsoon in 2018 from the intraseasonal perspective

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Abstract

The East Asian winter monsoon in 2018 winter is characterized by below-normal surface air temperature (SAT) over central Siberia and eastern China when the winter mean is considered and by three cold waves when the intraseasonal variability, whose timescale is shorter than a season, is concerned. The three cold waves only consist of approximately 2 weeks, but they play a primary role in shaping the SAT pattern in the winter mean field. Nevertheless, the atmospheric circulation anomalies that shape the SAT pattern during the cold waves cannot be reflected well in the winter mean fields. It leads to insufficiencies to explain the winter mean SAT pattern by examining the winter mean circulation alone. In contrast, the SAT pattern formation can be better interpreted when the role of cold waves is considered. These results suggest that the common approach in climate science to examine the seasonal mean variables alone in understanding the seasonal behaviors of climate misses some crucial aspects, at least for this particular winter, and that the intraseasonal variability should be taken into account to supplement these missing aspects. It is recommended that the influences of intraseasonal variability on the climatic behavior of the East Asian winter monsoon be studied comprehensively in the future to portrait a complete picture of this issue.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41925020, 41721004) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (QYZDY-SSW-DQC024).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Monsoon System Research, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Lin Wang, Chuang Zheng & Yuyun Liu

  2. College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Lin Wang, Chuang Zheng & Yuyun Liu

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  1. Lin Wang
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Correspondence to Lin Wang.

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Wang, L., Zheng, C. & Liu, Y. Understanding the East Asian winter monsoon in 2018 from the intraseasonal perspective. Clim Dyn 57, 2053–2062 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-05793-x

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