The major features of the westerly jets in boreal winter, consisting of the Middle East jet stream (MEJS), East Asian jet stream (EAJS) and North Atlantic jet stream (NAJS), simulated by a newly developed climate system model, were evaluated with an emphasis on the meridional location of the westerly jet axis (WJA). The model was found to exhibit fairly good performance in simulating the EAJS and NAJS, whereas the MEJS was much weaker and indistinguishable in the model. Compared with the intensity bias, the southward shift of the WJA seems to be a more remarkable deficiency. From the perspective of Ertel potential vorticity, the profiles along different westerly jet cores in the model were similar with those in the reanalysis but all shifted southward, indicating an equatorward displacement of the dynamic tropopause and associated climatology. Diagnosis of the thermodynamic equation revealed that the model produced an overall stronger heating source and the streamfunction quantifying the convection and overturning Hadley circulation shifted southward significantly in the middle and upper troposphere. The two maximum centers of eddy kinetic energy, corresponding to the EAJS and NAJS, were reproduced, whereas they all shifted southwards with a much reduced intensity. A lack of transient eddy activity will reduce the efficiency of poleward heat transport, which may partially contribute to the meridionally non-uniform cooling in the middle and upper troposphere. As the WJA is closely related to the location of the Hadley cell, tropopause and transient eddy activity, the accurate simulation of westerly jets will greatly improve the atmospheric general circulation and associated climatology in the model.
The response of non-uniformity of precipitation extremes over China to doubled CO2has been analyzed using the daily precipitation simulated by a coupled general circulation model,MIROC_Hires.The major conclusions are as follows:under the CO2increasing scenario(SRES A1B),the climatological precipitation extremes are concentrated over the southern China,while they are uniformly distributed over the northern China.For interannual variability,the concentration of precipitation extremes is small over the southern China,but it is opposite over the northern China.The warming effects on the horizontal and vertical scales are different over the northern and southern part of China.Furthermore,the atmospheric stability is also different between the two parts of China.The heterogeneous warming is one of the possible reasons for the changes in non-uniformity of precipitation extremes over China.