Interannual Meridional Displacement of the Upper-Tropospheric Westerly Jet over Western East Asia in Summer

The interannual meridional displacement of the upper-tropospheric westerly jet over the eastern portion of East Asia in summer has been well documented. This study, however, investigates the interannual meridional displacement of the westerly jet over the western portion of East Asia in summer, which is distinct from its eastern counterpart. The results show that the meridional displacement of the western East Asian jet shows a clear asymmetric feature; that is, there are remarkable differences between the southward and northward displacement of the jet. The southward displacement of the jet corresponds to suppressed convection in the tropical western North Pacific and Maritime Continent and enhanced convection in the equatorial Pacific, which can be explained by the warmer sea surfaces found in the northern Indian Ocean and equatorial eastern Pacific. These tropical anomalies somewhat resemble those associated with the eastern East Asian jet variability. However, the northward displacement of the western East Asian jet does not correspond to significant convection and SST anomalies in the entire tropics; instead, the northward displacement of the jet corresponds well to the positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation. Furthermore, the meridional displacement of the western jet has asymmetric impacts on rainfall and surface air temperatures in East Asia. When the western jet shifts northward, more precipitation is found over South China and Northeast China, and higher temperatures appear in northern China. By contrast, when the jet shifts southward, more precipitation appears over the East Asian rainy belt, including the Yangtze River valley, South Korea, and southern and central Japan and warmer temperatures are found South and Southeast Asia.