Abstract
The present study investigates the lead relationship of the April–May (AM) Southern Annular Mode (SAM) with the northern Australia rainfall (NAR) variability in the subsequent December–February (DJF). The AM SAM was revealed to exhibit a considerable negative relationship with the NAR in the following DJF, which was still significant after removing the possible influence of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Further analysis revealed that the AM SAM can trigger the dipole sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) in the southern Indian Ocean through air-sea interactions. The dipole SSTA persists across the following months from June to September, and then it evolves to form the dipole SSTA at locations to the east of previous definitions of the Subtropical Indian Ocean Dipole from October to February of the following year. Based on the circulation anomalies, the AM SAM-related dipole SSTA in DJF is associated with an eastward shift of the Walker circulation between the tropical eastern Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean, resulting in upward (downward) motion over the Indian (Pacific) Ocean and easterly surface wind anomalies across northern Australia. The anomalous easterlies are part of a localized anticyclonic circulation centred over the study region, which indicates diminished moisture influx into the northern parts of the continent, resulting in dry conditions over northern Australia. Besides, model results based on the preceding AM SAM and September ENSO indicate enhanced predictive skill of the NAR associated with combined indices compared to either single index.
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Data availability statement
The ERA-5, GPCC, and CRU rainfall data are collected from https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/reanalysis-era5-land-monthly-means?tab=form, https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.gpcc.html and https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hrg/cru_ts_4.05/cruts.2103051243.v4.05/pre/, respectively. SAMI-Nan and Li (2003) is obtained from http://lijianping.cn/dct/page/65609. The NCEP-NCAR reanalysis and SST data are accessible at https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.html and https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.noaa.ersst.v5.html, respectively.
Change history
06 February 2024
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-07086-x
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the UK Met Office Hadley Center, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction-National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP-NCAR), the NCEP Global Ocean Data Assimilation System, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for giving free access to data. In addition, we appreciate Zhangqun Li for her help with the linear prediction model construction.
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This research is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, U1902209 and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Grant no. XDA20060501.
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All authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. Data curation, formal analysis, and figure’s preparation were performed by DM. The first draft of the manuscript was written by DM, and ZX revised the manuscript. Both authors approved the submitted final version of the manuscript.
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Mbigi, D., Xiao, Z. The Southern Annular Mode: its influence on interannual variability of rainfall in North Australia. Clim Dyn (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-07029-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-07029-6