Search

The East Asian summer monsoon brings a large amount of precipitation in East China every year, which is the main source of water resources for China. At the same time, it often causes the severe flooding disasters. The Chinese meteorologists and hydrologists have realized that the moisture transport intensity, the extent and persistence of summer monsoon may play a crucial role in extreme rainstorm processes. This branch of moisture transport belt may be termed as the East Asian summer monsoon moisture transport belt. It can be categorized in the atmospheric river (AR) coined internationally, but it is not a fully same conception, due to its unique regional feature of the East Asian summer monsoon. The monsoon moisture transport belt is a main producer of excessively heavy rainfalls and disastrous floods in this region. Based on the data of the past hundred years, this paper made an update re view of the characteristics and formation reasons of the East Asian summer monsoon moisture transport belt. Taking the five strongest continuous heavy rain processes in the Haihe River, Yellow River, Huaihe River and Yangtze River in the past hundred years as examples, the important role of the monsoonal moisture transport belt is analyzed. Finally, it is proposed that climate warming can affect the global water cycle through four aspects, including holding more water vapor in the atmosphere, changes of the atmospheric circulations and radiation forcing with climate warming as well as the regional impact of aerosols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]