Eurasian snow and the Asian summer monsoon

Abstract The Asian summer monsoon includes the Indian summer monsoon and the East Asian summer monsoon, and the Eurasian snow in preceding seasons is an important factor of the multiple-scale variations of the summer monsoons. Regional monsoons are observed to be related to Eurasian snow in many places, but different relationships occur in specific locations. A particular regional monsoon is even differently linked to snow over different Eurasian domains. Snow–monsoon relationships vary on interdecadal and even longer timescales and are modulated by other factors including the Pacific and Indian Ocean sea surface temperatures. Snow-albedo effect and snow-hydrological effect are often applied to explain snow–monsoon relationships, which can be reasonably-well simulated by global climate models.