An alternative index for the onset of summer monsoon over the South China Sea (SCS) has been designed based on the reanalysis data of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR). It is found that the difference between the geopotential thickness over Guangzhou and Manila can be used as an alternative index for the onset of summer monsoon over the SCS. Since the convective heating alters the geopotential height and the distance between Guangzhou and Manila is of synoptic scale in the geostraphic framework, the index can represent the strength of heating and the first baroclinic cell over the SCS. By comparison between different indices, it is found that the summer monsoon onset over the SCS can be ascertained by the vertical zonal wind shear between 200 hPa and 850 hPa, the zonal wind at 850 hPa, the OLR anomaly, and the alternative index defined in the present paper. The meridional wind shear between 200 hPa and 850 hPa always appears over the SCS much earlier than the zonal wind shear and cannot be used as an index under consideration.
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