Considering the different uplifting time of different subregions of the Himalaya-Tibetan Plateau(TP),a series of numerical simulations have been conducted with the Community Atmosphere Model(CAM4) developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research to explore the effects of the phased tectonic uplift of the Himalaya-TP on the evolution of Asian summer monsoons.The results show that the uplifts of the Himalaya and northern TP significantly affect the evolutions of South Asian summer monsoon and northern East Asian summer monsoon respectively.That is,the tectonic uplift of the Himalaya intensifies the South Asian summer monsoon circulation and increases the precipitation in South Asia,whereas the uplift of the northern TP intensifies the northern East Asian summer monsoon circulation and increases the precipitation in northern East Asia.Compared with previous simulations,current comparative analyses of modeling results for different subregional uplifts within the Himalaya-TP help deepen our understanding of the evolutionary history of Asian monsoons.
ZHANG Ran 1,JIANG DaBang 1,2,3,LIU XiaoDong 4 & TIAN ZhiPing 2,5 1 Climate Change Research Center,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing 100029,China
A global atmospheric general circulation model and an asynchronously coupled global atmosphere-biome model are used to simulate vegetation feedback at the mid-Pliocene approximately 3.3 to 3.0 million years ago.For that period,the simulated vegetation differed from present conditions at 62%of the global ice-free land surface.Vegetation feedback had little overall impact on the global climate of the mid-Pliocene.At the regional scale,however,the interactive vegetation led to statistically significant increases in annual temperature over Greenland,the high latitudes of North America,the mid-high latitudes of eastern Eurasia,and western Tibet,and reductions in most of the land areas at low latitudes,owing to vegetation-induced changes in surface albedo.
The Middle Pliocene (ca 3.12–2.97 Ma) is a recent warm period in the Earth’s history. In many respects, the warmth of the Middle Pliocene is similar to the probable warm situation of the late 21st century predicted by climate models. Understanding the Middle Pliocene climate is important in predicting the future climate with global warming. Here, we used the latest reconstructions for the Middle Pliocene—Pliocene Research Interpretation and Synoptic Mapping (PRISM) version 3—to simulate the Middle Pliocene climate with a fully coupled model Fast Ocean Atmosphere Model. From comparison of the results of simulations with reconstructions, we considered two important scientific topics of Middle Pliocene climate modeling: extreme warming in the subpolar North Atlantic and a permanent El Ni?o in the tropical Pacific. Our simulations illustrate that the global annual mean sea surface temperature (SST) in the Middle Pliocene was about 2.3°C higher than that in the pre-industrial era. The warming was stronger at midand high latitudes than at low latitudes. The simulated SST changes agree with SST reconstructions in PRISM3 data, especially for the North Atlantic, North Pacific and west coast of South America. However, there were still discrepancies between the simulation of the SST and reconstructions for the subpolar North Atlantic and tropical Pacific. In the case of the Atlantic, the weakened meridional overturning circulation in the simulation did not support the reconstruction of the extremely warm condition in the subpolar North Atlantic. In the case of the tropical Pacific, the whole ocean warmed, especially the eastern tropical Pacific, which did not support the permanent El Ni?o suggested by the reconstruction. From evaluation of the modeling and reconstruction, we suggest that the above discrepancies were due to uncertainties in reconstructions, difficulties in paleoclimate modeling and deficiencies of climate models. The discrepancies should be reduced through consideration of both the modeling and data
YAN QingZHANG ZhongShiWANG HuiJunJIANG DaBangZHENG WeiPeng
In this study, the authors simulate the East Asian climate changes in the mid-Pliocene (～3.3 to 3.0 Ma BP) with the Community Atmosphere Model version 3.1 (CAM3.1) and compare the simulated East Asian monsoon with paleoclimate data. The simulations show an obvious warming pattern in East Asia in the mid-Pliocene compared with the pre-industrial climate, with surface air temperature increasing by 0.5 4.0°C. In the warm mid-Pliocene simulation, the East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) becomes stronger, while the East Asian Winter Monsoon (EAWM) is similar relative to the pre-industrial climate. Compared with the paleoclimate data, our simulations depict the intensified EASM well but cannot reproduce the weakened EAWM. This model-data discrepancy may be attributed to the uncertainty in the reconstructed mid-Pliocene sea surface temperature.
