In this paper, recent progress in the study of the East Asian summer Monsoon (EAM) and its impact on global climate fluctuations are reviewed. The review is focused on the climatology and variability of the EAM rainfall and its relationship with regional and global scale circulation systems. Climatologically, the EAM rainfall is dominated by convective activities associated with the northward advance of the Mei-Yu trough from southern China during April-May to central China during mid-June. After staying in the same position for one to two weeks, the Mei-Yu trough disappears abruptly and a new rainfall zone is developed over northern China. This is followed by a quasi-20 days oscillatory rainfall regime which develops over central China. Subsequently, the maximum rainfall zone returns to the coastal region of south and southeast China. Regional features unique to the EAM include the extraordinary length of the extended monsoon season (April to late August), the extent of the northward penetration of the major precipitation, the multiple onset and interspersed propagation and stationary nature of the rainfall. Planetary scale features that directly influence the EAM include the western Pacific Subtropical High, the Tibetan High, the local Hadley and the equatorial Walker circulations.
It is stressed that the EAM rainfall is only a small part of global scale precipitation system which migrates northward from the equatorial Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific to the EAM region and Indian subcontinent during the boreal summer. The EAM possesses a wide range of spatial and temporal scales of variabilities including the seasonal cycle, intraseasonal oscillations, subseasonal scale inter-monsoon interactions, sub-synoptic scale variability and supercluster organization in the western Pacific. These variabilities are in turn linked to interannual variations associated with the biennial oscillation and the El Nino/Southern oscillation. Also discussed is evidence showing the presence of an atmospheric teleconnection pattern connecting eastern Asia and North America (ANA) via the North Pacific. The ANA has profound impact on the climate of eastern Asia including Japan. Dynamically, it may be associated with a marginally unstable barotropic mode in the mean northern hemisphere summertime circulation. This mode is also related to latent heating in the western Pacific near Philippines as well as the Indian Ocean region. While there are some successes in the general circulation model (GCM) simulation of the planetary scale features of the EAM, most GCMs still have problems obtaining realistic regional rainfall over East Asia and India. The intraseasonal and interannual variability of the EAM are generally not very well-simulated in GCMs. Much work is needed to improve modeling of the variability of the EAM.