Role of monsoon variability in heat wave activity over South China and Indochina

Heat waves (HWs) exert serious impacts on human health and the natural environment. With global warming, HW activities in many parts of the world have been intensifying during the past decades and are projected to pose increasingly severe threats to society in the future. In order to assess the global and regional impacts of climate change, it is therefore important to broaden our understanding of HWs. In this chapter, we first review recent advances in the study of HWs in various regions by focusing on the synoptic characteristics and atmospheric circulations associated with such phenomena. Then we examine the behavior of HWs over South China and Indochina, where the local climate is strongly influenced by monsoon circulations. Results are presented on how the HW occurrences in these regions are affected by the intensity and spatial pattern of the local monsoon flow.