This grant supports a graduate student who will pursue a Ph.D through this research, the goal of which is to understand the total variability of the East Asian monsoon as a component of the earth's climate system. The PIs plan to carry out a study of the East Asian monsoon rainfall and its relationship with global scale variability using advanced time series analyses. The objectives of the research are to: - identify conclusively the principal spatial and temporal modes of rainfall variability in East Asian monsoon rainfall - investigate relationship between EAM rainfall and large scale environmental parameters such as SST, radiation, circulation in various time domains. - use results of analyses to test and validate theories of monsoon dynamics This research will make use of both observational data and GCM output. Observational data include: 185 stations of 30 years daily rainfall data over East Asia, weekly to monthly SST from CAC, surface wind, SST and cloudiness from COADS, analyzed wind from NMC and ECMWF, and OLR from NOAA/NESDIS. Also used are outputs from long-term integration of the GLA and COLA GCM. This research is important because it seeks to understand the processes that control the East Asian monsoon, a major feature of the climate system.
