| Session Details | |
| Section | AS - Atmospheric Sciences |
| Session Title | Tropical Circulations And Their Interaction With Regional Climates |
| Main Convener | Prof. Yongyun Hu (Peking University, China) |
| Co-convener(s) | Dr. Jian Lu (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, United States) Dr. Gang Chen (Cornell University, United States) Dr. Yi Ming (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, United States) Prof. Sarah Kang (Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Korea, South) |
| Session Description | Despite decades of research and some emerging progress, jury is still out regarding the fundamentals of the tropical atmospheric circulation, its roles in regional climates, and its response to climate forcings. What determines the intensity and width of the Hadley circulation? What determines the location of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and its seasonal variations? How should these features respond to a variety of forcings—either internal or external to the climate system? How do atmospheric circulation changes lead to regional climate changes? And how regional circulations, such as monsoons, manifest themselves with the zonal-mean Hadley circulation? Answers to these questions can have profound impacts on improving our understanding and predicting the behaviors of the tropical/subtropical climates. The challenge resides in (i) the fundamental nonlinearity of the tropical dynamics and its intimate interaction with convection and clouds; (ii) the inextricable interaction between the momentum, moisture and energy; and (iii) the large zonal asymmetry in the tropical circulation. This session invites contributions from all aspects of the tropical atmospheric circulations including theory, observations, and modeling. More specifically, 1. Fundamental constraints on tropical atmospheric circulations (ITCZ, Hadley circulation, Walker circulation, and monsoon) , 2. Effect of zonal asymmetry on the monsoon system, 3. Roles of convections in the tropical circulations, 4. Tropical circulation response to climate change, 5. Influences of Hadley circulation changes on regional climates |