Song Yang

• PhD
• Professor at Sun Yat-sen University

The Aleutian Low (AL) is a dominant feature of the mean circulation in the North Pacific during the winter season. The background stationary wave, air-sea interaction, and transient eddies over the North Pacific exert distinct impacts on the interannual variations of the AL intensity and position. In this study, we adopt the quasi-geostrophic geopo...

Plain Language Summary Numerous studies have elucidated the intricate linkages between the Australian summer monsoon and various components of the global climate system. However, there remains a notable gap in our understanding of the interaction between the monsoon and the high‐latitude climate dynamics. This study investigates the response of mon...

To understand the role of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) in the polar seasonality and its remote effect on the Arctic climate, we use the Community Earth System Model to perform Drake Passage (DP) open and closed experiments. Model results illustrate that in the opened DP, the ACC and Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) stre...

The Indian summer monsoon (ISM) is intricately linked to the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on interannual timescale. Although previous studies have explored ENSO's effects on the ISM, the reverse influence, particularly under global warming, remains unclear. This study examines the projected changes in the ISM's impacts on ENSO under the SSP5...

A significant relationship exists between the Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) and the following year's El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), in spite of the uncertainty in the associated mechanisms. Here, we show that the spring sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies over the southeastern Indian Ocean (SEIO) play a bridging role in the teleconnec-tion of...

This study investigates the changes in environmental conditions related to the decadal variation of genesis frequency of tropical cyclones (TCGF) over the South China Sea (SCS) during the summer. Corresponding to the decadal increase in TCGF, the seasonal mean anomalies of the genesis potential and environmental fields over the SCS are not favorabl...

A deep, large-scale warmth occurred in the Arctic from January to April 2016, but the roles of various physical processes in this period have not been quantified. Here, we utilize an updated version of the coupled atmosphere‒surface climate feedback response analysis method to quantitatively attribute the extreme warmth. Our results show distinct c...

This study is focused on the unusual inhomogeneity of the seasonal distribution of genesis frequency of tropical cyclones (TCGF) over the western North Pacific (WNP), which tends to be linked to a significant phase reversal of TCGF anomaly. More active stage of tropical cyclones (TCs) shifting toward summer (autumn) corresponds to a positive (negat...

https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1knb42weQ%7ElMu （A personalized URL providing 50 days' free access to this article before May 07, 2025） El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) exhibits a wide range of spatial patterns, causing distinct global impacts. Over the past decades, various ENSO indices have been proposed to capture its diversity. Although the...

The frequency and intensity of heatwaves over southwestern China during spring and early summer have been increased significantly during 1980–2022. Until now, the physical mechanisms for these changes in heatwaves remain unclear. Here, we show that these increases in heatwaves can be attributed to the changes in both local soil moisture–temperature...

Tropical convection anomaly could serve as a crucial driver of global atmospheric teleconnections and weather extremes around the world. However, quantifying the dominances of convection anomalies with regional discrepancies, relevant for the variations of global atmospheric circulations, remains challenging. By using a network analysis of observat...

The interannual variability of the North Pacific Oscillation (NPO) in boreal winter displayed a significant interdecadal shift, characterized by a local north-south seesaw pattern before the mid-1980s but a global-scale wave-train pattern afterwards, and the dynamic nature associated with these two distinct interannual modes remains unexplored. An...

The South Asian summer monsoon (SASM) is of considerable scientific and social importance to the densely populated South Asia. Existing literature signified that the interannual variation of the SASM can be reflected by multiple dynamical and radiative processes. However, quantifying their relative contributions remains inadequate, particular for t...

The impact of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) transition on the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) during post-ENSO summer has been investigated widely, but how to quantify ENSO transition precisely is still a challenge. This study proposes a new index to quantify ENSO transition based on the intensity of the spring persistence barrier. After val...

Under global warming, the convective heating over the western Pacific (WP) has exhibited a significantly intensifying trend during the boreal spring, while the surface air temperatures in the Middle East (ME) have increased more rapidly than those in other tropical regions. Are these climate phenomena of the two regions physically connected? If yes...

This study evaluates the capability of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models to simulate El Niño‐Southern Oscillation teleconnections in the Southern Hemisphere during austral summer. The wave trains from the tropical Pacific to the Amundsen Sea are underestimated and too far westward in CMIP6 simulations. However, Atmosp...

Pronounced spatial disparities in heatwave trends are bound up with a diversity of atmospheric signals with complex variations, including different phases and wavenumbers. However, assessing their relationships quantitatively remains a challenging problem. Here, we use a network-searching approach to identify the strengths of heatwave-related atmos...

Plain Language Summary Significantly rising temperatures can coincide with extreme weather events such as droughts or rainstorms to form compound warm‐dry extremes (WDEs) or warm‐wet extremes (WWEs), leading to more severe consequences than just hot weather alone. Recent findings indicate that WDEs are more prevalent in non‐ice‐covered regions wher...

The influences of the tropical Indian and Atlantic oceans on the development of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), especially regarding super El Niño events, have been a subject of debate. In particular, several studies argue that these cross-basin influences may be mere statistical artifacts resulting from the high auto-correlation of ENSO. To c...

Midlatitude Europe (ME) emerges as a prominent heatwave hotspot with rapid increases in summer surface air temperature and heatwave days since 1979, surpassing the global land averages by approximately 2.6 and 2.3 times, respectively. The circulation analogs‐based dynamic adjustment reveals that approximately 38% and 35% of these trends result from...

An obvious long‐term drying trend in recent early springs (February–March–April) is observed over southeastern China (SEC). Here, we attribute this drying to the weakened subtropical westerlies and deflected by the Tibetan Plateau (TP). Climatologically, the low‐level southwesterlies at the southeastern margin of the TP, a branch of the upstream su...

This study examines the performance of 52 models from phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) in capturing the effects of the Indian summer monsoon on the evolution of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The ISM’s impacts on ENSO show a substantial diversity among the models. While some models simulate the strength of the impa...

Plain Language Summary To understand the role of the Antarctic Circumpolar Circulation (ACC) in the asymmetric Arctic and Antarctic warming, we conduct two numerical model experiments. We consider two different climate states by closing or opening the Drake Passage (DP). The former yields a weak ACC, while the latter results in a strong ACC. A stro...

The Ross Ice Shelf (RIS) experiences surface melt events in summer, which could accelerate ice loss and destabilize the ice sheet in a warming world. This study links the interannual variability of RIS surface melt to the northerly wind anomaly over the Ross Sea sector, which is established in association with the quasigeostrophic barotropic Rossby...

The South Asian summer monsoon (SASM) is a significant monsoon system that exerts a profound impact on climate and human livelihoods. According to 38 models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6, the SASM circulation is projected to weaken significantly under global warming as seen in the weakened low-level westerly wind over the n...

Plain Language Summary The speed at which wind blows near the surface in the Arctic is important for understanding local air‐sea interactions and ensuring the safety of ships traveling across the region. However, how and why Arctic wind speeds are changing in a warming climate remains unclear. Using a combination of data analysis and model simulati...

Sub-seasonal prediction of regional compound heatwaves and their predictability sources remain unclear. In this study, the underlying mechanisms for the long-lasting compound heatwave over southern China during 1-18 July 2010, and the major sources of its sub-seasonal prediction skill are identified. The results show that both the development and d...

Compound warm events exert profound impacts on environment, health, and socioeconomics. A recent study indicated a shift or transition from warm-dry events (WDEs), common in non-ice-covered areas, to warm-wet events (WWEs) in ice-covered zones. Utilizing ERA5 reanalysis data, this study determined the duration and frequency of WDEs and WWEs across...

Global climate change has led to more frequent and intense dry and wet extremes, causing considerable socio-economic losses, but whether these extremes in distant regions are linked and what mechanisms are driving their changes remain unclear. Based on the standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index and ERA5 reanalysis data, this study reve...

Heatwaves are projected to substantially increase almost without exception at a global scale, exacerbating worldwide heat-related risks in the future. However, understanding spatial heterogeneity of future heatwave changes and their origins remains challenging. By analyzing the output of various climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison...

The South Asian summer monsoon (SASM) circulation in 2015 is the weakest since 2000s, which results in severe drought over broad regions of the Indian peninsula. The 2015 SASM is closely related to the weakened summer meridional thermal contrast between southern Eurasia (SE) and the tropical Indian Ocean (TIO) at the mid–upper troposphere. Based on...

A pronounced shift of the North Pacific Oscillation (NPO), including its teleconnection with the East Asian winter monsoon, has been observed in recent decades, but the underlying mechanism remains unclear. In this study, we found that interannual variation of the NPO and its relationship with the dominant modes of winter mean and extreme temperatu...

Spring thermal forcing over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) is largely determined by surface sensible heating (SSH), which is an important fuel for atmospheric circulations over subtropics and even the globe. However, insufficient efforts were devoted on exploring the potential influencing factors of spring TP's SSH. In the current study, observational an...

The summer Eurasian westerly jet is reported to become weaker and wavier, thus promoting the frequent weather extremes. However, the primary driver of the changing jet stream remains in debate, mainly due to the regionality and seasonality of the Eurasian jet. Here we report a sharp increase, by approximately 140%, in the interannual variability of...

Concurrent drought and heatwave (CONDH) can cause tremendous ramifications on socioeconomic activities and human health, and the drought-heatwave (D-H) dependence has been revealed to be one of the major factors of the CONDH across most global land regions. However, insufficient attention has been paid on the CONDH over the Asian monsoon region, an...

The Aleutian Low (AL) is a dominant feature of the mean circulation in the North Pacific during the winter season. The background stationary wave, air-sea interaction, and transient eddies over the North Pacific exert distinct impacts on the interannual variations of the AL intensity and position. In this study, we adopt the geopotential tendency e...

The full text of this preprint has been withdrawn, as it was submitted in error. Therefore, the authors do not wish this work to be cited as a reference. Questions should be directed to the corresponding author.

Pronounced spatial disparities in heatwave trends are bound up with a diversity of atmospheric signals with complicated variations, but assessing their relationships quantitatively remains a challenging problem. Here, using a network-searching approach to identify the strengths of heatwave-related atmospheric teleconnections (AT) with ERA5 reanalys...

This study shows that geostationary satellites are critical to estimate the accurate cloud feedback strength over the tropical western Pacific (TWP). Cloud feedback strength was calculated by the simultaneous relation between cloud cover and sea surface temperature (SST) over the TWP [120°E–170°E, 20°S–20°N]. During 2011–2018, the cloud cover was o...

Plain Language Summary As one of the most important components of the low‐level atmospheric circulation patterns over the western North Pacific, the western North Pacific anticyclone (WNPAC) plays a key role in linking El Niño to the East Asian monsoon. In this study, we quantify the contribution of sea surface temperature (SST) from three tropical...

The paradigm of compound extremes shifts from hot-dry spells over ex-polar lands to warm-wet extremes over polar ice sheets. This warm-wet synchrony is likely driven by intrusions of warm-moist air from lower latitudes, and under global warming, its net effect could destabilize the polar ice sheets and accelerate global sea level rise.

Plain Language Summary As an important component of the Asian monsoon system, the Southeast Asian summer monsoon (SEASM) is crucial for the livelihoods of billions of people in East Asia, and is closely connected to a climate phenomenon called El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Understanding how the relationship between SEASM and ENSO will change...

Offshore wind speed in China plays a key role in affecting air–sea interactions, coastal tides, and wind energy, but its changes in a warming climate and the associated causes remain unclear. Based on the ERA5 reanalysis and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models, this study evaluates the past and future variations of wind...

Plain Language Summary As one of the key components of the atmosphere, water vapor plays a crucial role in regulating the processes in the climate system. It has long been established that water vapor generally increases with global rising mean air temperature as dictated by the Clausius‐Clapeyron theorem if relative humidity changes little. Here,...

The Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) and the quasi-biweekly oscillation (QBWO) are prominent components of the intraseasonal oscillations over the tropical Indo-Pacific Ocean. This study examines the tropical cyclone (TC) genesis over the Bay of Bengal (BOB) and the South China Sea (SCS) on an intraseasonal scale in May–June during 1979–2021. Result...

Sub-seasonal prediction of heatwaves remains as a major challenge for climate models. In the summer of 2016, southern China was hit by a prolonged heatwave occurred from 23 July to 1 August, the evolution of which was characterized by two peaks around 25 July and 30 July and a rapid termination after 1 August. The heatwave was intensified with desc...

The Indian Ocean Basin (IOB) mode is believed to favor the decay of El Niño via modulating the zonal wind anomalies in the western equatorial Pacific, while the contribution of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) mode to the following year’s El Niño remains highly controversial. In this study, we use the evolution of fast and slow decaying El Niño events...

Herein, we report a strong in-phase covariability of tropical cyclone (TC) activity between the Bay of Bengal (BOB) and the South China Sea (SCS) during October–December of 1979–2019, and which is also the dominant mode of BOB–SCS TC activity, accounting for 35% of the total variances in TC track density. This inter-basin TC covariance is closely l...

This study examines the fidelity of 47 models from phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) in representing the influence of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on the Southeast Asian summer monsoon (SEASM) during the ENSO decaying summer. The response of the SEASM to ENSO shows a large model spread among the models, some of whi...

It remains a major challenge to attribute heatwave’s lifecycle characteristics quantitatively to interwoven atmospheric and surface actions. By constructing a process-resolving, energetics-based attribution framework, here we quantitatively delineate the lifecycle of the record-breaking 2022 mega-heatwave over central-eastern China from a local ene...

The 2020 extreme rainfall was highly unusual with episodes of intensive rains and winds from the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Valley to southern Japan. Given the severe implications and huge forecast spread among different models, the extreme Mei-yu has aroused widespread concern. This study is aimed at synthesizing the latest rese...

Under the background of global warming, the Arctic region has warmed faster than the Antarctic, which is referred to as asymmetric Arctic and Antarctic warming. The new generation of model simulations from the CMIP6 offers an opportunity to identify the major factors contributing to the asymmetric warming and its intermodel spread. In this study, t...

This study addresses how to model and predict large‐scale climate variability, such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). We introduce a framework for inferring the macroscale causal structure of the climate system using a spatial‐dimension reduction and high‐dimensional variable selection. The framework encodes the causal structure into a st...

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) impacts local and remote atmospheric circulations, wherein it mechanically and thermally affects air masses or airflows. Moreover, the TP provides a key channel for substance transport between the troposphere and the stratosphere. This study reviews recent advances in research regarding land–atmosphere coupling processes ov...

Extreme cold events exert enormous impacts on the ecosystems and human health. A quantitative attribution analysis of the surface temperature anomalies associated with extreme cold events in China is conducted using an updated version of the coupled atmosphere-surface climate feedback response analysis method. For both extreme warm and cold years,...

The pre-monsoon circulation over South Asia in May shows remarkable interannual variations, and it can modulate the onset of the Asian summer monsoon. The present study derives two dominant stratosphere-troposphere modes over the North Atlantic in April via applying the principal component (PC) analysis to regional geopotential height during 1979–2...

Plain Language Summary In this study, we investigated the influences of the Pacific Meridional Mode (PMM), an important modulator of El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO), on the diverse transition preference of ENSO events (ENSO transition complexity). We first divided PMM events into two types that are respectively triggered by tropical and extratr...

We investigate the relative importance of spring sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in different Indian Ocean (IO) domains, especially the northern and southern IO, for the development and intensity of the Asian summer monsoon. By performing unsupervised neural network analysis, the self-organizing map, we extract distinct patterns of springtime IO SS...

Using an objective feature-tracking algorithm and the fifth major global reanalysis produced by ECMWF data (ERA5), the seasonal behaviors of cyclonic transient eddies (cyclones) at different levels around the Tibetan Plateau (TP) were examined to understand the effects of the TP on cyclones. Results show that the TP tends to change the moving direc...

It remains a major challenge to attribute heatwave’s lifecycle characteristics quantitatively to interwoven atmospheric and surface actions. By constructing a process-resolving, energetics-based attribution framework (PREAF), here we quantitatively delineate the lifecycle of the unprecedented 2022 mega-heatwave over central-eastern China from a loc...

Prolonged low temperature significantly threatens transportation and planting in populous areas and is closely linked to slowly varying forcing such as sea surface temperature (SST). In this study, we reveal the impact of the north–south dipole pattern in extra-tropical North Atlantic SST (DNA) anomaly on surface air temperature (SAT) over southern...

This study investigates the physical mechanisms responsible for the impacts of the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) on the evolution of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with a focus on understanding the monsoon-induced Pacific air–sea interactive processes. An observational analysis displays that a weaker-than-normal ISM can strengthen an ongoing El...

In this study, the relationship between AO and winter synoptic temperature variability (STV) over the Northern Hemisphere is examined in 34 CMIP5/CMIP6 model outputs. With significant model bias around the North Pacific and North Atlantic, most models fail to capture the correct AO–STV pattern in historical simulations compared to observations. To...

Extreme cold events exert enormous impacts on the ecosystems and human health. A quantitative attribution analysis of the surface temperature anomalies associated with extreme cold events in China is conducted using an updated version of the coupled atmosphere-surface climate feedback response analysis method. For both extreme warm and cold years,...

Plain Language Summary Southern China (SC) experiences a period of rainy time in spring, with the rainband located from South China to the Yangtze River. The southern China spring rainfall (SCSR) is influential for agriculture and soil moisture accumulation before the flood season in summer. A better prediction of the SCSR improves our ability to r...

The Pacific meridional mode (PMM) can modulate El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and is also affected by ENSO-related tropical Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs). Two tropical feedbacks on the PMM have been proposed: a positive one of central tropical Pacific SSTAs and a negative one of eastern tropical Pacific (ETP) SSTAs, the lat...

Concurrent precipitation and temperature extremes exert amplified impacts on the ecosystems and human society, however, they have not been well documented over the Asian monsoon region with dense population and agricultures. In this study, the spatiotemporal variations of four concurrent extreme modes (cold/dry, cold/wet, warm/dry, and warm/wet) ar...

Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are vulnerable to climate change and associated extreme temperatures, where the health of pregnant women and fetuses could be particularly affected. However, the extent to which anthropogenic climate change contributes to their health has not been documented. Utilizing 451,252 mother-infant pairs from 31 LMI...

The western-central equatorial Pacific (WCEP) zonal wind affects El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) by involving a series of multiscale air–sea interactions. Its interannual variation contributes the most to ENSO amplitude. Thus, understanding the predictability of the WCEP interannual wind is of great importance for better predictions of ENSO. He...

Plain Language Summary El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) exerts pronounced climate impacts across the globe, but it is influenced by many factors. Previous studies have revealed that sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) over the North Atlantic could stimulate ENSO events through two pathways, directly through regulating the tropical atmosphe...

The interannual variability and long-term trend of the drought conditions over southeastern China during early spring (from February to April) are investigated by analyzing the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index in 1979–2020. Results from an attribution analysis show that precipitation deficiency and atmospheric water demand contri...

Climate change in the South China Sea and its surrounding areas (SCSSA), which include the Indo-Pacific Oceans, Southeast Asia, and the Tibetan Plateau, could exert profound impacts on both regional and global climate patterns. This study examines the unique characteristics of climate change in the SCSSA in the context of global warming, highlighti...