Jiang et al. (2025) Responses of the East Asian Winter Climate to Global Warming in CMIP6 Models

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Atmosphere
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-09-29
• Authors: Yuxi Jiang, Yutao Chi, Weidong Wang, Wenshan Li, Hui Wang, Jianxiang Sun
• DOI: 10.3390/atmos16101143

Research Groups

Not explicitly stated in the provided text.

Short Summary

This study evaluates the projected changes in the East Asian winter climate (EAWC) from 1979 to 2100 using a multimodel ensemble from CMIP6, revealing widespread and robust alterations including significantly shortened winters and uneven regional temperature shifts driven by greenhouse gas emissions.

Objective

• To evaluate the changes in the East Asian winter climate (EAWC) during the period 1979–2100 and support policy-making for climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: East Asia, encompassing the East Asian continent, Japan, marginal seas of northeastern Asia, and the Tibetan Plateau.
• Temporal Scale: 122 years (1979–2100).

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Multimodel ensemble from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6).
• Data sources: Output from CMIP6 models, analyzed using a temperature threshold method.

Main Results

• The EAWC is undergoing widespread and robust changes in response to global warming.
• Winter length in East Asia is projected to drastically contract from 100 days in 1979 to 43 days (under SSP2-4.5) or 27 days (under SSP5-8.5) by 2100, due to later onsets and earlier withdrawals.
• Most regions of the East Asian continent are projected to experience warmer winters.
• Japan and the marginal seas of northeastern Asia are projected to face risks from colder winters with more frequent extreme cold events and less precipitation.
• The Tibetan Plateau is very likely to have colder winters in the future, despite a significant decline in surface snow amounts.
• Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are identified as the primary driver of these changes, through increased air temperature and modulation of large-scale atmospheric circulation (enhanced/northward Aleutian low, weakened Siberian high, East Asian trough, and East Asian jet stream).

Contributions

• Provides a comprehensive, multimodel ensemble assessment of future East Asian winter climate changes, highlighting critical regional disparities (warming in some areas, cooling in others).
• Quantifies the projected shortening of winter length in East Asia under different emission scenarios.
• Identifies the specific atmospheric circulation changes modulated by greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to the observed EAWC shifts.
• Emphasizes the urgency of curbing greenhouse gas emissions and improving EAWC forecasts to mitigate ecological and social impacts, offering insights for policy-making.

Funding

Not explicitly stated in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Jiang2025Responses,
  author = {Jiang, Yuxi and Chi, Yutao and Wang, Weidong and Li, Wenshan and Wang, Hui and Sun, Jianxiang},
  title = {Responses of the East Asian Winter Climate to Global Warming in CMIP6 Models},
  journal = {Atmosphere},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.3390/atmos16101143},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos16101143}
}