In this paper, we discussed the features of atmospheric circulations over Eurasia as a response to sea surface temperature anomalies （SSTAs） over the tropical Indian Ocean, the equatorial Pacific, Kuroshio and the North Atlantic. Our results are shown as follows： （1） CAM3.0, driven by the combined SSTAs over the four oceanic regions, can simulate well the features of anomalous atmospheric circulations over Eurasia in January 2008, indicating that the effects of the SSTAs over these four regions were one of the key causes of the anomalous systems over Eurasia. （2） The SSTAs over each key region contributed to the intensification of blocking over the Urals Mountains and a main East Asian trough. However, the influence of the SSTAs over individual oceanic regions differed from one another in other aspects. The SSTAs over the North Atlantic had an impact on the 500-hPa anomalous height （Z500A） over the middle-high latitudes and had a somewhat smaller effect over the low latitudes. For the warm SSTAs over Kuroshio, the subtropical high was much stronger, spread farther north than usual, and had an anomalous easterly that dominated the northwest Pacific Ocean. The warm SSTAs over the tropical Indian Ocean could have caused a negative Z500A from West Asia to Middle Asia, a remarkably anomalous southwesterly from the Indian Ocean to the south of China and an anomalous anticyclone circulation over the South China Sea-Philippine Sea region. Because of the La Nifia event, the winter monsoon was stronger than normal, with an anomalously cooler northerly over the southeastern coastal areas of China. （3） The combined effects of the SSTAs over the four key regions were likely more important to the atmospheric circulation anomalies of January 2008 over Eurasia than the effects of individual or partly combined SSTAS. This unique SSTA distribution possibly led to the circulation anomalies over Eurasia in January 2008, especially the atmospheric circulation anomalies over the subtropics, which were more simila
This work investigates the distribution of high winds above Beaufort scale 6 in the offshore zones of China using high-resolution satellite measurements.A numerical experiment is carried out in order to find out the effects of Taiwan Island on the formation of strong winds.The analysis indicates that the distribution of high wind occurrence is similar to that of the average wind velocity in winter.High winds tend to be anchored in special topographical regions,such as the Taiwan Strait,the Bashi Channel and the southeast coast of Vietnam.High winds occur much more frequently over the warmer than the colder flank of Kuroshio front as it meanders from Taiwan to Japan.The frequency of high winds decreases drastically in spring.The Taiwan Strait maintains the largest high wind occurrence.Besides,high winds remain frequent in the Bashi Channel,the southeast tip of Taiwan Island and the warmer flank of Kuroshio front.In summer,high winds generally occur infrequently except over a broad region off the southeast coast of Vietnam near 10°N and the frequency there decreases from southwest to northeast.High winds around Taiwan Island present near axisymmetric distribution with larger frequency along southeast-northwest direction and smaller frequency along southwest-northeast direction.The dominant direction of high winds exhibits a counterclockwise circulation surrounding the island.The frequency of high winds increases rapidly in autumn and almost repeats the distribution that appears in winter.The simulation results suggest that the effects of Taiwan Island topography on high winds vary with seasons.In winter,topography is the major cause of high winds in the surrounding oceanic zones.High winds in both Taiwan Strait and the southeast corner of the island disappear and the frequency decreases gradually from south to north when the terrain is removed.However,in summer,high wind frequency derived from two simulations with and without terrain is almost identical.We attribute this phenomenon to the factors which are respons
