Document Type
Article
Journal/Book Title/Conference
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society
Volume
136
Publisher
Royal Meteorological Society
Publication Date
7-2010
First Page
1543
Last Page
1553
Abstract
The diurnal wind variation over the East Asian continent is commonly considered to be a combination of a land-sea breeze near the coast and a mountain–valley breeze along the slopes of the Tibetan Plateau. The local land–sea breeze along the coastline typically spansHowever, a detailed examination of the global reanalysis data suggests that this local land–sea breeze circulation apparently couples with the global-scale diurnal atmospheric pressure tide to produce a planetary-scale land–sea breeze with a spatial scale of ∼1000 km over the western North Pacific. Computations of the momentum budget and equivalent potential temperatures indicate that the atmospheric diurnal tidal wave contributes the most to this circulation feature. A diagnosis of the water vapour budget further suggests that the convergence of water vapour flux, which is related to the convergence of low-level wind induced by the seasonal change of diurnal tidal wave, leads to different times of occurrence of maximum diurnal rainfall over East Asia between summer and winter.
Recommended Citation
Huang, W.-R., J. C-L Chan, S.-Y.Wang, 2010: A planetary-scale land–sea breeze circulation in East Asiaand the western North Pacific. Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc., 136, 1543-1553.
