Abstract
The amount of winter precipitation in Japan is increasing only in the Kanto-Koshin region, which includes the Tokyo metropolitan area located on the Pacific Ocean side of Japan. This study investigated long-term historical changes in winter precipitation in Japan using a large ensemble of regional climate simulations that capture the observed increases in precipitation in the Kanto-Koshin region. In addition, self-organizing maps (SOMs) were applied to the atmospheric pressure to explore historical changes in weather pattern (WP) leading to precipitation. The results suggest that long-term changes in precipitation/snowfall could be due to differences in the WP frequency of southern-coastal cyclones and WP-related precipitation due to altered background states during the winter. The former and latter can be interpreted as dynamic and thermodynamic impacts of historical climate change. As for the Kanto-Koshin region, atmospheric circulation analogs revealed that thermodynamic and dynamic effects account for ~ 2/3 and ~ 1/3 of the precipitation changes, respectively, while dynamic effects (increases in south coast cyclone occurrence) dominantly account for snowfall changes. These changes could be attributed to the large-scale historical increases in air temperature and water vapor content.
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This study used d4PDF produced with the Earth Simulator jointly by science programs (SOUSEI, TOUGOU, SI-CAT, and DIAS) of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT), Japan. d4PDF is fully described and available at http://www.miroc-gcm.jp/~pub/d4PDF/index_en.html
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Acknowledgements
This study used d4PDF produced with the Earth Simulator jointly by several science programs (SOUSEI, TOUGOU, SI-CAT, DIAS) belonging to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT), Japan. This research was partially supported by JSPS KAKENHI (grant number: JP “19H01377”) and the MEXT-Program for the Advanced Studies of Climate Change Projection (SENTAN) (grant number: JPMXD0722680734).
Funding
This work was partially supported by JSPS KAKENHI [grant number JP 19H01377] and the MEXT-Program for the advanced studies of climate change projection (SENTAN) [grant number JPMXD0722680734].
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Ohba, M., Kawase, H. Assessment of long-term historical trends in winter precipitation in Japan using large-ensemble climate simulations: Changes in the impact of southern coastal cyclones. Clim Dyn (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-024-07213-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-024-07213-2