The Western North Pacific Subtropical High (WNPSH) regulates East Asian climate in summer. Anomalous WNPSH causes floods, droughts and heat waves in China, Japan and Korea. The potential change of the WNPSH under global warming is concerned by Asian people, but whether the WNPSH would be enhanced or weakened remains inconclusive. Based on the multi-model climate change projection from the 5th phase of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), we show evidences that the WNPSH tends to weaken and retreat eastward in the mid-troposphere in response to global warming, accompanied by an eastward expansion of East Asian rain belt along the northwestern flank of WNPSH. Weakened meridional temperature gradient on the northern flank of WNPSH and the associated thermal wind account for the weakened WNPSH in the mid troposphere. We recommend the WNPSH be measured by eddy geopotential height (He) instead of traditionally used geopotential height, especially in climate change studies.

Using the outputs of 33 coupled models that participated in phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), the changes of the western North Pacific subtropical high (WNPSH) in the 2050–99 period under representative concentration pathway 4.5 and 8.5 (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) scenarios relative to the 1950–99 period are analyzed. Under both scenarios, the projected changes in the WNPSH intensity are approximately zero in the multimodel ensemble mean (MME), and large intermodel spread is seen. About half of the models project an enhanced WNPSH and about half of the models project a weakened WNPSH under both scenarios. As revealed by both diagnostic studies and numerical simulations, the projected change in the WNPSH intensity is dominated by the change in the zonal sea surface temperature (SST) gradient between the tropical Indian Ocean (TIO) and the tropical western Pacific (TWP). A stronger (weaker) warming in the TIO is in favor of an enhanced (weakened) WNPSH, and a weaker (stronger) warming over the TWP is also in favor of an enhanced (weakened) WNPSH. The projected change of the WNPSH modulates the climate change over eastern China. Under both RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, all of the models with a significantly increased (decreased) WNPSH intensity are associated with a significant increase in the precipitation over the northern (southern) part of eastern China and an enhanced (weakened) southerly wind.

In the summer (July and August) of 2022, unprecedented heat wave occurred along the Yangtze River Valley (YRV) over East Asia while unprecedented flood occurred over western South Asia (WSA), which are located on the eastern and western sides of Tibetan Plateau (TP). Here, by analyzing the interannual variability based on observational and reanalysis data, we show evidences that the anomalous zonal flow over subtropical Tibetan Plateau (TP) explains a major fraction the extreme events occurred in 2022. As isentropic surfaces incline eastward (westward) with altitude on the eastern (western) side of the warm center over TP in summer, anomalous easterly (westerly) flow in upper troposphere generates anomalous descent (ascent) on the eastern side of TP and anomalous ascent (descent) on the western side of TP via isentropic gliding. The anomalous easterly flow is extremely strong to reverse the climatological westerly flow over subtropical TP in 1994, 2006, 2013 and 2022. The easterly flow in 2022 is the strongest since 1979, and it generates unprecedented descent (ascent) anomaly on the eastern (western) side of TP, leading to extreme heat wave over YRV and extreme flood over WSA in 2022. The anomalously strong easterly flow over subtropical TP in 2022 is dominated by atmospheric internal variability related to mid-latitude wave train, while the cold sea surface temperature anomaly over the tropical Indian Ocean increases the probability of a reversed zonal flow over TP by reducing the meridional gradient of tropospheric temperature.

Coupled climate system models consistently show that the low-level southerly wind associated with the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) is enhanced under anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing, and the enhanced EASM was attributed to the enhanced land–sea thermal contrast by previous studies. Based on a comparison of the global warming scenarios with the present-day climate in an ensemble of 30 coupled models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), we show evidence that changes in land–sea thermal contrast cannot explain the enhanced EASM circulation in terms of the seasonality. Indeed, the enhanced low-level southerly wind over East Asia is associated with a large-scale anomalous cyclone around the Tibetan Plateau (TP), and numerical simulation by the Linear Baroclinic Model suggests that the enhanced latent heating over the TP associated with enhanced precipitation is responsible for this low-level cyclone anomaly and the enhanced EASM circulation projected by the coupled models. Moisture budget analysis shows that enhanced hydrological recycling and enhanced vertical moisture advection due to increased specific humidity have the largest contribution to the increased precipitation over the TP, and more than half of the intermodel uncertainty in the projected change of EASM circulation is associated with the uncertainty in the changes of precipitation over the TP. Therefore, the TP plays an essential role in enhancing the EASM circulation under global warming through enhanced latent heating over the TP.

Subtropical anticyclones dominate the subtropical ocean basins in summer. Using the multimodel output from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), the future changes of the subtropical anticyclones as a response to global warming are investigated, based on the changes in subsidence, low-level divergence, and rotational wind. The subtropical anticyclones over the North Pacific, South Atlantic, and south Indian Ocean are projected to become weaker, whereas the North Atlantic subtropical anticyclone (NASA) intensifies, and the South Pacific subtropical anticyclone (SPSA) shows uncertainty but is likely to intensify. Diagnostic analyses and idealized simulations suggest that the projected changes in the subtropical anticyclones are well explained by the combined effect of increased tropospheric static stability and changes in diabatic heating. Increased static stability acts to reduce the intensity of all the subtropical anticyclones, through the positive mean advection of stratification change (MASC) over the subsidence regions of the subtropical anticyclones. The pattern of change in diabatic heating is dominated by latent heating associated with changes in precipitation, which is enhanced over the western North Pacific under the “richest get richer” mechanism but is reduced over subtropical North Atlantic and South Pacific due to a local minimum of SST warming amplitude. The change in the diabatic heating pattern substantially enhances the subtropical anticyclones over the North Atlantic and South Pacific but weakens the North Pacific subtropical anticyclone.