INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY Int. J. Climatol. 21: 535–556 (2001) PRECIPITATION AND ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION PATTERNS AT MID-LATITUDES OF ASIA ELENA M. AIZEN a, *, VLADIMIR B. AIZEN a , JOHN M. MELACK a , TSUTOMU NAKAMURA b and TAKESHI OHTA b a Uniersity of California, Santa Barbara, Donald Bren School of Enironmental Science and Management, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 -5131, USA b Faculty of Agriculture, Iwate Uniersity, 3 -18 -8 Ueda, Morioka, 020 Japan Receied 7 December 1999 Reised 6 October 2000 Accepted 13 October 2000 ABSTRACT Analyses of the coupling between large-scale atmospheric patterns and modifications of regional precipitation regimes at seasonal and annual time scales in different terrain of mid-latitudes in Asia, including western Siberia, Tien Shan and Pamir mountains, and plains of middle Asia and Japanese Islands, were examined based on data from 57 and 88 hydro-climatic stations with 100 and 60 year records, respectively. For the past 100 years, a positive trend in precipitation was revealed in western Siberia, northern regions of Tien Shan and Japanese Islands. North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and West Pacific Oscillation (WPO) indices have inverse associations, with average amount of precipitation in western Siberia and in mountains and plains of middle Asia, and positive correlation in central and western regions of Japanese Islands. The Pacific North American (PNA) index is positively correlated with annual precipitation over most of the Japanese Islands. Northern Asian (NA) positive anomalies lead to decrease in winter precipitation in the western and eastern regions of Japanese Islands. We did not find significant impact of PNA or NA on precipitation in middle Asia. We suggest that during the last century, impacts of the western jet stream increased in the northern regions of Tien Shan and Japanese Islands, and weakened in the eastern Japanese Islands. There is a suggestion that conditions are more favourable for precipitation development over continental regions of Asia when the Siberian High is positioned further to the east than further to the west. During dominant development of a zonal atmospheric pattern, the annual and seasonal precipitation decreased over most regions in continental Asia and central Japan. Copyright © 2001 Royal Meteorological Society. KEY WORDS: atmospheric processes; central Asia; Japanese Islands; precipitation; Siberia DOI: 10.1002/joc.626 1. INTRODUCTION The characterization and modelling of climate variability on annual to century time scales is a challenge in the field of climatology. These variabilities are a result of changes in large-scale atmospheric circulation, and numerous studies have attempted to link observed regional climate variability with parameters representative of atmospheric circulation. The majority of investigations on atmospheric circulation patterns (ACP) and climate dependence have been undertaken at the mid to low latitudes of American and European continents (Cayan and Roads, 1984; Cayan and Riddle, 1992; Beniston et al., 1994; Daultrey, 1996). The challenging problem of quantifying the effect that global climate circulation has on regional Asian hydrometeorology has been considered in few analyses. Wang and Li (1990) studied precipitation fluctuations over semiarid regions in northern China and their correlation with El Nin ˜ o – Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and their possible link with summer monsoon and the western Pacific sub-tropical high. Sugiyama (1987) and Nishimori and Kawamura (1993) analysed the relationships between seasonal snow cover and large-scale circulation patterns for Japanese Islands. Analyses of * Correspondence to: University of California, Santa Barbara, Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5131, USA; e-mail: aizen@esm.ucsb.edu Copyright © 2001 Royal Meteorological Society