Researchers have developed a more accurate model for predicting the amount of summer rainfall and number of tropical storms in East and South-East Asia.
The study, published last month (22 January) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, advances understanding of the East Asian summer monsoon, a weather system that affects agricultural production and the lives of billions of people across the continent.
Researchers say the model could ‘significantly improve’ monsoon and rainfall predictions in the region, which could aid governments and disaster management specialists.
Bin Wang, a meteorology professor at the University of Hawaii, United States and the study’s lead author, says the new model is roughly twice as accurate in predicting rainfall and tropical storms in the summer months over East Asia compared with similar models developed over the past 30 years.
According to Wang, the predictions will be more accurate in mainland South-East Asia than in inland China, where colder fronts mix with tropical weather systems and oceans regulate land temperatures to a lesser extent.
The study sampled data collected from 1979 to 2009 to analyse the ‘Western Pacific Subtropical High’ (WPSH), a circulation system centred in the Philippine Sea that leads to precipitation and storms in East and South-East Asia.
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