South China Sea Monsoon Experiment (SCSMEX) and the East Asian Monsoon

The SCSMEX is a joint atmospheric and oceanic experiment by international efforts, aiming at studying the onset, maintenance, and variability of the South China Sea (SCS) summer monsoon, thus improving the monsoon prediction in Southeast and East Asian regions. The field experiment carried out in May-August 1998 was fully successful, with a large amount of meteorological and oceanographic data acquired that have been used in four dimensional data assimilations by several countries, in order to improve their numerical simulations and prediction. These datasets are also widely used in the follow-up SCS and East Asian monsoon study. The present paper has summarized the main research results obtained by Chinese meteorologists which cover six aspects: (1) onset processes and mechanism of the SCS summer monsoon; (2) development of convection and mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) during the onset phase and their interaction with large-scale circulation; (3) low-frequency oscillation and teleconnection effect; (4) measurements of surface fluxes over the SCS and their relationship with the monsoon activity; (5) oceanic thermodynamic structures, circulation, and mesoscale eddies in the SCS during the summer monsoon and their relationship with ENSO events; and (6) numerical simulations of the SCS and East Asian monsoon.