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The Asian monsoon provides the freshwater that a large population in Asia depends on, but how anthropogenic climate warming may alter this key water source remains unclear. This is partly due to the prevailing point-wise assessment of climate projections, even though climate change patterns are inherently organized by dynamics intrinsic to the climate system. Here, we assess the future changes in the East Asian summer monsoon precipitation by projecting the precipitation from several large ensemble simulations and CMIP6 simulations onto the two leading dynamical modes of internal variability. The result shows a remarkable agreement among the ensembles on the increasing trends and the increasing daily variability in both dynamical modes, with the projection pattern emerging as early as the late 2030 s. The increase of the daily variability of the modes heralds more monsoon-related hydrological extremes over some identifiable East Asian regions in the coming decades. Projecting regional hydrological response to climate change has been a longstanding challenge. By using the dominant precipitation modes as "fingerprints", this study shows the robust Asian monsoon rainfall response to anthropogenic warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the dynamical processes of Ural blocking (UB) during its different phases of development is of great importance for the prediction of UB and the subsequent meteorological impacts in Asia. Using the 6‐hourly ERA‐Interim reanalysis data, this study quantifies the conservative and non‐conservative processes in the lifecycle of UB through the lens of the hybrid Eulerian‐Lagrangian local finite‐amplitude wave activity (LWA) diagnostics. It is found that (a) as a wave activity source, eddy heat flux assists the zonal LWA flux in initiating the UB, it also works to prevent the wave activity of the blocking from dispersing downstream—the key characteristic of blocking; (b) both wave propagation and wave advection are indispensable for the evolution of UB, playing a tug‐of‐war on the downstream development of wave activity; (c) throughout the lifespan of UB, diabatic heating acts as a damping mechanism for the wave activity both upstream and downstream. Plain Language Summary: Midlatitude blocking is a distinct circulation phenomenon with unique stagnation in space and long persistence in time, and it is often considered to be originating from barotropic dynamics. Here a state‐of‐the‐art analysis tool for diagnosing wave activity is applied to the blocks over Urals, aka UB, to provide a comprehensive evaluation of both barotropic and baroclinic, and both conservative and non‐conservative processes during the formation, maintenance, and decay of UB. The result reveals distinct roles of these processes between the upwind and downwind sides of Urals, particularly underlining the importance of the baroclinic wave growth in the initiation phase of UB and in blocking the downstream development of the associated wave activity. An important corollary is that the conventional barotropic thinking may be inadequate for UB in the real atmosphere. Key Points: We construct a complete local wave activity budget for Ural blocking (UB), accounting for both conservative and non‐conservative processesBaroclinic process plays an important role in the developing phase and in extending the lifespan of UBIt is the upwind wave propagation that works against the effect of downwind advection to give rise to the blocking effect of UB [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the three most famous brewed wines in the world, Chinese rice wine is made from rice and husked millet, containing 14 percent to 20 percent alcohol. Highly original, yellow wine brewing techniques are regarded as the model of the wine brewing industry in Asia. Shaoxing Huangjiu is produced in Zhejiang province and remains the oldest and most representative Chinese rice wine. During storage, Shaoxing Huangjiu is susceptible to environmental disturbance and produces colloidal haze to result in turbidity. In this study, the main composition and source of colloidal haze protein in Shaoxing Huangjiu were analyzed by two‐dimensional electrophoresis and matrix‐assisted laser ionization time‐of‐flight tandem mass spectrometry (MALDI‐TOF/TOF MS). The results showed that the proteins in colloidal haze mainly consisted of oat protein b1, oat‐like protein, di‐amylase inhibitor, pathogenesis‐related protein, pathogenesis‐related protein‐4, chitinase II derived from wheat and oat‐like protein, and beta‐amylase derived from rice. The amino acid composition and secondary structure of haze protein and supernatant protein in Huangjiu were further explored by high‐performance liquid chromatography and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The study has broadened knowledge of the main composition and source of colloidal haze protein in Shaoxing Huangjiu. The corresponding results indicated that the amino acid composition from colloidal haze had the main characteristics of high hydrophobicity and low water solubility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, the 800 km elongated mud belt off Zhejiang-Fujian coast, East China Sea (ECS), has been extensively studied for understanding the source to sink processes on the East Asian continental margin in the context of the Asian monsoon. However, to better understand the sediment source and dispersal pattern, the existing mineralogical and geochemical data of adjacent river systems, including the Changjiang River (CJR) and local rivers in Zhejiang, Fujian and Taiwan, need to be systematically reviewed. Therefore, various indicators from published literatures for the provenance discrimination in the mud belt have been summarised in this article. The results show that high diversity of clay mineral assemblages in fluvial sediments being supplied into the mud belt, e.g., dominant illite and chlorite in the CJR, absence of smectite in Taiwan rivers, similar amounts of the four clay mineral species in Zhejiang rivers, and dominant kaolinite in Fujian rivers. On heavy mineralogy, the CJR is dominated by dolomite, hornblende, and flaky minerals; and among of them, dolomite is distinctive for the CJR. For geochemical approaches, elemental compositions, combined with strontium and neodymium isotopes, reflect strong provenance control. However, geochemical and mineralogical compositions are found to vary with grain size, and thus extra caution should be taken when using these parameters as provenance indicator to discriminate the marine sediments with variety of grain-size fractions. In addition, pyrrhotite, occurred in fluvial sediments from western Taiwan, has not been found in sediments derived from mainland China, indicating that magnetic parameters could be used to discriminate sediment provenance. The mud belt formed during sea-level highstand, when modern current system in the ECS has been established, resulting in sediments derived from the CJR have been transported southward since 8 ka. In addition, sediment provenances have not been constant since initiation of the mud belt in response to climatic and oceanographic changes during the Holocene, which has been documented by mineral and geochemical signals. Nevertheless significant studies have been carried out, to better understand the formation mechanism for the mud belt and its implications for environmental changes, further studies on sediment provenance throughout the Holocene, in situ observation, and sedimentation dynamical modelling are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objective: Pemetrexed plus platinum has shown efficacy as a first-line treatment for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but little is known about its efficacy and safety in East Asian patients. We report the final analysis of overall survival (OS) from a multicentre, randomized, phase II trial in chemotherapy-naive Chinese patients with advanced NSCLC. An additional meta-analysis was performed to systematically evaluate pemetrexed/platinum as first-line treatment for advanced NSCLC., Methods: Eligible patients received up to six cycles of pemetrexed, 500 mg/m(2) plus cisplatin, 75 mg/m(2) (day 1) or gemcitabine, 1000 mg/m(2) (days 1 and 8) plus cisplatin, 75 mg/m(2) (day 1). OS and toxicity were assessed., Results: A total of 254 patients were randomized, and 251 were eligible for inclusion in the efficacy and safety analyses. Median OS in the pemetrexed/cisplatin arm was 15.3 months, compared with 16.9 months in the gemcitabine/cisplatin arm [hazard ratio (HR) 1.09; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.80-1.48; log-rank P = 0.4888). There was a trend towards improved survival in both arms. Patients in the pemetrexed/cisplatin arm showed a lower incidence of drug-related grade 3 to 4 leukopenia and thrombocytopenia. Meta-analysis showed that pemetrexed-platinum treatment was associated with 19% longer survival among females (HR 0.81; 95% CI 0.69-0.96) and 17% longer survival among patients with non-squamous cell lung cancer (HR 0.83; 95% CI 0.73-0.95)., Conclusions: In Chinese patients with advanced NSCLC, pemetrexed/cisplatin treatment resulted in comparable OS outcomes and was better tolerated than gemcitabine/cisplatin. Meta-analysis supports the use of pemetrexed-platinum as first-line treatment for female patients and those with the non-squamous cell subtype of advanced NSCLC., (© 2012 The Authors. Respirology © 2012 Asian Pacific Society of Respirology.)