Search

Based on two observational data sets in China from 1956 to 2004, wind speed changes are analyzed. The annual mean wind speed (MWS), days of strong wind (SWDs), and maximum wind (MW) all show declining trends over broad areas of China. Only in the southeastern Tibetan Plateau and the regions from the Great Bend of the Yellow River southward to Yunnan and Guangxi Provinces wind speeds are not significantly reduced, but rather, in partial, these regions’ winds speeds are slightly increased. The regions with declining trends match the areas with relatively strong observed winds and the regions without significant declining trends match the areas with light observed winds. In the meantime, the regions with relatively strong winds correspond to areas of reduced days of SWDs. Trends for both increasing intensities and for the number of days of light winds both impact the installation of wind energy facilities. These may be advantageous to the development of wind energy in different regions. Urbanization, the change of anemometers, or relocation of stations are factors that are mildly responsible for the decreasing trend of MWS. The main reason for the decreasing trend is that under the background of global warming, the contrasts of the sea level pressure, and near-surface temperature between the Asian continent and the Pacific Ocean have become significantly smaller, and the east Asian trough has shifted eastward and northward, and has weakened as well. Both East Asian winter and summer monsoons are decreasing, and all of these impacts have resulted in declines of MWS in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the role that horizontal resolution plays in the simulation of East Asia precipitation. Two sets of numerical experiments are performed using the Regional Climate Model (RegCM2) nested in one-way mode within the CSIRO global coupled atmosphere-ocean model. In the first set we use the actual RegCM2 topography at the selected model resolutions, which are 45, 60, 90, 120, 180, 240 and 360 km. In the second set of the experiments, the same coarse CSIRO model topography is used in all simulations using the different resolutions of the first set. The results demonstrate that the simulation of East Asian precipitation improves as the horizontal resolution is increased. Moreover, it is shown that the simulations using a higher resolution along with the coarse CSIRO topography perform better than the simulations using a coarser model resolution with corresponding model topography. This suggests that over East Asia adequate spatial resolution to resolve the physical and dynamical processes is more important than topography. Lastly, the results indicate that model resolutions of 60 km or higher are needed to accurately simulate the distribution of precipitation over China and East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]