Roles of the tropical convective activities over different regions in the earlier onset of the South China Sea summer monsoon after 1993.

The South China Sea summer monsoon (SCSSM) onset experiences evidently an interdecadal change around mid-1990s. Generally, the SCSSM broke out half a month earlier during 1994-2010 than IN 1978-1993. Possible causes are analyzed in this study. The results suggest that the earlier onset of the SCSSM is due to earlier retreat of the subtropical high (STH) over the western Pacific, which is closely related to enhanced intraseasonal oscillations of tropical convections. The enhanced convective activities can be found in three regions: the eastern tropical Indian Ocean (TIO), the equatorial SCS-Kalimantan (ESK) and the tropical western Pacific (TWP). Both convections in the TIO and the ESK are greatly influenced by the interaction of the westerly wind from the TIO and the easterly wind from the TWP. The convections in the TIO are never found to propagate to the east of 100°E, while those in the ESK are usually quite weak and not great help to the SCSSM onset. Our results suggest that the earlier retreat of the STH is mainly caused by the enhanced convections in the TWP, while the later may be the consequence of warming over the TWP on the interdecadal timescale. Therefore, the La Niña-like interdecadal change of the sea surface temperature (SST) in the Pacific is likely to be responsible for the interdecadal advance of the SCSSM onset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]