This paper investigates the dynamical processes through which the Tibetan Plateau (TP) influences the East
Asian summer monsoon (EASM) within the framework of the moist static energy (MSE) budget, using both
observations and atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) simulations. The focus is on the most
prominent feature of the EASM, the so-called meiyu–baiu (MB), which is characterized by a well-defined,
southwest–northeast elongated quasi-stationary rainfall band, spanning from eastern China to Japan and into
the northwestern Pacific Ocean between mid-June and mid-July.
Observational analyses of the MSE budget of the MB front indicate that horizontal advection of moist
enthalpy, and primarily of dry enthalpy, sustains the front in a region of otherwise negative net energy input
into the atmospheric column. A decomposition of the horizontal dry enthalpy advection into mean, transient,
and stationary eddy fluxes identifies the longitudinal thermal gradient due to zonal asymmetries and the
meridional stationary eddy velocity as the most influential factors determining the pattern of horizontal moist
enthalpy advection. Numerical simulations in which the TP is either retained or removed show that the TP
influences the stationary enthalpy flux, and hence the MB front, primarily by changing the meridional stationary
eddy velocity, with reinforced southerly wind over the MB region and northerly wind to its north.
Changes in the longitudinal thermal gradient are mainly confined to the near downstream of the TP, with the
resulting changes in zonal warm air advection having a lesser impact on the rainfall in the extended MB region
