COAA
Prof. Huang's visit and Distinguished Scholar Syposium 2012
April, 2012
On April 14th, 2012, Prof. Ronghui Huang of Institute of Atmospheric Physics visited COAA. Prof. Huang is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is one of the top scientists in research areas of theory of atmospheric circulation, short-term climatic dynamics and tropical air-sea interaction. He serves as the general secretary of the national climate research committee. He is also a winner of the He Liang and He Li Science and Technology Advancing Award, one of the highest honors for a Chinese scientist. During the visit Prof. Huang became an Honorary Member of COAA.
At the 2012 Distinguished Scholar Symposium Profs. Huang and Zhanqing Li delivered two excellent lectures on latest advances at two frontiers of atmospheric science. Prof. Huang gave an overview of the East Asian Monsoon System. The thesis of this talk is that climate in China is mainly influenced by the East Asian monsoon (EAM) system. The significant interannual and interdecadal variabilities of the EAM system have an important impact on climate disasters in China. Especially since the 1980s, severe climate disasters over large areas have caused huge damage to agricultural and industrial productions in China. Thus, the characteristics and regularities of temporal and spatial variabilities of the EAM system may be important for the seasonal prediction of summer rainfall in China and are also important research issue for Chinese meteorologists.During the talk, Prof. Huang summarizes the advances in recent studies on the characteristics and variabilities of the EAM system. The results are mainly as follows:
1. The EAM system is a relatively independent monsoon subsystem of the Asian-Australian monsoon system. Both its horizontal and vertical structure of wind fields and water vapor transports and the annual cycle of this system are different from those of the South Asian monsoon and the North Australian monsoon systems.
2. The East Asian Summer Monsoon system has significant temporal and spatial variabilities, i.e., it has obvious tripole and dipole patterns in spatial distribution and significant interannual and interdecadal variabilities in time. Especially, the interannual variability of this system exhibits an obvious quasi-biennial oscillation, i.e., the TBO, with a meridional tripole pattern in spatial distribution. And the interdecadal variability of this system appeared a significant characteristic of a meridional tripole pattern before the late 1990s, but it has become from a meridional tripole pattern to a meridional dipole pattern in spatial distribution from the late 1990s.
3. The East Asian Winter Monsoon system has also a significant interdecadal variability, which caused continuous warming winters from the late 1980s to the early 2010s and recent cooling winters in East Asia. This may be relation to the interdecadal variation of quasi-stationary planetary waves propagation.
4. The EAM system variabilities are closely associated with coupling of atmosphere, ocean, and land processes and, hence, the system can be referred to as the EAM climate system, which includes various components of atmosphere, ocean and land surface processes that influence variability of the EAM system.
Prof. Li focused his attention at the microscopic scale and presented his latest findings regarding aerosol effects in the climate system. Prof. Li is an expert in climate change, radiation, aerosol-cloud interactions among many other areas. He is also selected as one of the recipients of the 'One-Thousand-Talents Program'. He has won many awards.
Prof. Li's lecture aims to answer some of the pressing questions regarding whether and how can environmental changes affect the climate and its changes in China. As the country of the densest population and fastest pace of economic development, China’s environment and climate are undergoing fast changes. These changes are connected due to aerosol’s direct and indirect effects on energy and water cycles. Heavy loading of aerosols reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching ground, that could lower surface temperature, reduce ocean-land contrast, whereas solar energy absorbed by aerosols alters atmospheric stability to have a feedback effect on atmospheric dynamics. By altering cloud microphysics and macrophysics, aerosols can also change cloud properties and precipitation frequency and amount. All of these can influence regional weather and climate in a dramatically. To tackle the problem and unravel various complex relations, a series of field experiments were conducted in the region by a team of scientists from US and China. They include the East Asian Study of Tropospheric Aerosols: an International Regional Experiment (EAST-AIRe), the East Asian Study of Tropospheric Aerosols and Impact on Regional Climate (EAST-AIRc), and Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM) Mobile Facility mission in China (AMF-China). During these experiments, extensive measurements were made of aerosol optical, physical and chemical properties and a suite of radiation quantities. By means of data analysis and modeling, we found significant effects of aerosols on temperature, precipitation, fog and atmospheric circulation, attesting the significant roles of atmospheric environment on the regional climate and its changes in China.
The Distinguished Scholar Symposium continued to attract large crowds mostly due to its high calibre speakers. At this year's event COAA is also pleased to give an Honorary Member to Dr. Jingli Yang. Dr. Yang gave extensive support for COAA's activity and she shared her personal experience with the crowd. She started in the academic circle and was trained as an expert in land system science. Later she found opportunity and interest in delivering data service systems for major research centers such as NOAA and NASA. Now she is a well-respected small business owner and the CEO of ERT. On behalf of COAA the past president Dr. Fuzhong Weng and current president Dr. Peter Wang presented the honor to Dr. Yang in recognition of her contribution to COAA.
