Thursday, 13 January 2000: 10:45 AM
The South China Sea Monsoon (SCSM) onset of 1998 has been studied by using a
coupled mesoscale atmosphere-land surface model composed of NCAR/PSU MM5
and GSFC PLACE. A series of two-week numerical experiments have been carried out
to study the effect of local land-cover change on the regional earth climate
system. The modeling results were compared with the observations of a field
campaign GEWEX GAME-Tropics over Thailand. The model correctly simulated the
onset of SCSM, which was at May 19, with the build up of the westerly over the
northern part of Indian ocean, and the moving of strong convection and
precipitation from the Bay of Bangle to the south China sea.
Water and energy budgets in various model domains have been analyzed to
assess the role of atmosphere and land-surface components responsible
for the monsoon development. Preliminary results shew that the land use is
important in affecting the hydrological cycle in SCSM development. Moreover,
the latent heat resulted from the convective precipitation of SCSM fueled up
the formation of a low pressure belt which later tremendously contributed to
the flood in Yantz river region in June.
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