The Earliest Onset Areas and Mechanism of the Tropical Asian Summer Monsoon

The multi-yearly averaged pentad meteorological fields at 850 hPa of the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis dada and the TBB fields of the Japan Meteorological Agency during 1980-1994 are analyzed. It is found that if the pentad is taken as the time unit of the monsoon onset, then the tropical Asian summer monsoon (TASM) onsets earliest, simultaneously and abruptly over the whole area in the Bay of Bengal (BOB), the Indo-China Peninsula (ICP), and the South China Sea (SCS), east of 90°E, in the 27th to 28th pentads of a year (Pentads 3 to 4 in May), while it onsets later in the India Peninsula (IP) and the Arabian Sea (AS), west of 90°E. The TASM bursts first at the south end of the IP in the 30th to 31st pentads near 10°N, and advances gradually northward to the whole area, by the end of June. Analysis of the possible mechanism depicts that the rapid changes of the surface sensible heat flux, air temperature, and pressure in spring and early summer in the middle to high latitudes of the East Asian continent between 100°E and 120°E are crucially responsible for the earliest onset of the TASM in the BOB to the SCS areas. It is their rapid changes that induce a continental depression to form and break through the high system of pressure originally located in the above continental areas. The low depression in turn introduces the southwesterly to come into the BOB to the SCS areas, east of 90°E, and thus makes the SCS summer monsoon (SCSSM) burst out earliest in Asia. In the IP to the AS areas, west of 90°E, the surface sensible heat flux almost does not experience obvious change during April and May, which makes the tropical Indian summer monsoon (TISM) onset later than the SCSSM by about a month. Therefore, it is concluded that the meridian of 90°E is the demarcation line between the South Asian summer monsoon (SASM, i.e., the TISM) and the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM, including the SCSSM). Besides, the temporal relations between the TASM onset and the seasonal variation of the South Asian high (SAH) are discussed, too, and it is found that there are good relations between the monsoon onset time and the SAH center positions. When the SAH center advances to north of 20°N, the SCSSM onsets, and to north of 25°N, the TISM onsets at its south end. Comparison between the onset time such determined and that with other methodologies shows fair consistency in the SCS area and some differences in the IP area.