Possible+Causes+of+the+Interdecadal+Transition+of+the+Somali+Jet+Around+the+Late+1990s.pdfVIP

214 JOURNAL OF METEOROLOGICAL RESEARCH VOL.29 Possible Causes of the Interdecadal Transition of the Somali Jet Around the Late 1990s XIAO Ziniu1,2 ( ), SHI Wenjing1,2,4 ∗ ( ), and YANG Ping3 ( ) 1 Department of Atmospheric Science, Nanjing University of Information Science Technology, Nanjing 210044, China 2 State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China 3 China Meteorological Administration Training Center, Beijing 100081, China 4 Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA (Received October 15, 2014; in final form December 11, 2014) ABSTRACT This observational study demonstrates that the Somali jet (SMJ) experienced a notable interdecadal transition in not only its lower-level parts ( 850 hPa) but also its higher-level parts (850–600 hPa) in the late 1990s. The results also show that the jet at higher level is more significantly related to East Asian monsoon rainfall than that at lower level. Thus, a new whole-layer SMJ (WSMJ) index which includes variations of the higher-level jet is defined based on the average meridional wind speed at five levels (1000– 600 hPa). The interdecadal transition of the SMJ can be mainly attributed to the meridional thermal contrast anomalies near the equator which are associated with the three-p