The Persistent Heavy Rainfall over Southern China in June 2010: Evolution of Synoptic Systems and the Effects of the Tibetan Plateau Heating

This study investigates influencing weather systems for and the effect of Tibetan Plateau (TP)'s surface heating on the heavy rainfall over southern China in June 2010, focusing on the four persistent heavy rainfall events during 14-24 June 2010. The major weather systems include the South Asian high, midlatitude trough and ridge, western Pacific subtropical high in the middle troposphere, and shear lines and eastward-moving vortices in the lower troposphere. An ensemble of convection-permitting simulations (CTL) is carried out with the WRF model for these rainfall events, which successfully reproduce the observed evolution of precipitation and weather systems. Another ensemble of simulations (SEN) with the surface albedo over the TP and its southern slope changed artificially to one, i.e., the surface does not absorb any solar heating, otherwise it is identical to CTL, is also performed. Comparison between CTL and SEN suggests that the surface sensible heating of TP in CTL significantly affects the temperature distributions over the plateau and its surroundings, and the thermal wind adjustment consequently changes atmospheric circulations and properties of the synoptic systems, leading to intensified precipitation over southern China. Specifically, at 200 hPa, anticyclonic and cyclonic anomalies form over the western and eastern plateau, respectively, which enhances the southward cold air intrusion along the eastern TP and the divergence over southern China; at 500 hPa, the ridge over the northern plateau and the trough over eastern China are strengthened, the southwesterly flows along the northwestern side of the subtropical high are intensified, and the positive vorticity propagation from the plateau to its downstream is also enhanced significantly; at 850 hPa, the low-pressure vortices strongly develop and move eastward while the southwesterly low-level jet over southern China strengthens in CTL, leading to increased water vapor convergence and upward motion over the precipitation region.