Luo et al. (2025) Synergistic enhancement of Asian monsoons to westerlies intensifies the drying trend of arid Central Asia over the last 20 years

Identification

• Journal: Gondwana Research
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-09-24
• Authors: Yu Luo, Changchun Xu, Zhiyi Li, Lin Li, Qian Wang, Qiyue Zhang
• DOI: 10.1016/j.gr.2025.08.021

Research Groups

• Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang, China
• College of Geography and Remote Sensing Sciences, Xinjiang University, Xinjiang, China

Short Summary

This study investigates the long-term dry-wet climate change in Arid Central Asia (ACA) and finds that a synergistic enhancement of Asian monsoons to westerlies has intensified the region's drying trend over the last 20 years.

Objective

• To examine long-term dry-wet climate change trends in Arid Central Asia (ACA) and evaluate the individual and synergistic impacts of westerlies and Asian monsoons on these trends.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Arid Central Asia (ACA), including Northern Xinjiang (NX), the Tianshan Mountain area (TM), and the Central Desert (CD).
• Temporal Scale: 1940 to 2022 (83 years), with a focus on the last 20 years (since the 2000s).

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI).
• Data sources: Atmospheric circulation data.

Main Results

• The summer climate in Arid Central Asia (ACA) has generally become slightly drier over the past 80 years, with a notable increase in aridity beginning in the 1990s.
• Spatially, ACA exhibits contrasting dry-wet trends from the southeast to the northwest, with drier areas becoming drier and wetter areas becoming wetter.
• The influence of Asian monsoons on dry-wet climate change in Northern Xinjiang, the Tianshan Mountain area, and the Central Desert surpasses that of the westerlies.
• Over the past two decades, as the westerlies weakened, the correlation between the summer SPEI and both the East Asian Monsoon Index (EMI) and South Asian Monsoon Index (SMI) increased, indicating a growing influence of monsoonal systems.
• Specifically, the East Asian monsoon (above 700 hPa) and South Asian monsoon (below 700 hPa) demonstrate enhanced effects.
• The interactive effects between the westerlies and Asian monsoons on dry-wet climate change are more pronounced than the influence of either system alone.
• Under conditions of weak westerlies and strong monsoons, the climate in ACA tends to become drier; conversely, under strong westerlies and weak monsoons, it tends to become wetter.
• The increasing synergy between the westerlies and monsoons has accelerated the aridification process in ACA over the past two decades.

Contributions

• Provides a comprehensive analysis of the individual and combined impacts of westerlies and Asian monsoons on dry-wet climate change in Arid Central Asia.
• Highlights the increasing synergistic effect between westerlies and monsoons, particularly over the last two decades, as a key driver of accelerated aridification in the region.
• Addresses the existing knowledge gap regarding how these atmospheric systems influence dry-wet climate change in Arid Central Asia.

Funding

• Not explicitly mentioned in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Luo2025Synergistic,
  author = {Luo, Yu and Xu, Changchun and Li, Zhiyi and Li, Lin and Wang, Qian and Zhang, Qiyue},
  title = {Synergistic enhancement of Asian monsoons to westerlies intensifies the drying trend of arid Central Asia over the last 20 years},
  journal = {Gondwana Research},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1016/j.gr.2025.08.021},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2025.08.021}
}