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Modulations of NAO on the interplay between monsoon and westerlies in Asia on interdecadal timescales

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Abstract

Among the global monsoon systems, the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) reaches the furthest north into eastern Asia and separates it into the monsoon- and westerlies-dominated regions. Paleoclimate studies revealed different hydroclimate patterns between the monsoon- and westerlies-dominated regions at glacial-interglacial and centennial timescales. The monsoon-westerlies boundaries are difficult to be quantified with the instrumental data. Herein, a monsoon-westerlies dipole pattern was identified by empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis of the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) for the 1900–2018 period on interdecadal timescales. This dipole pattern showed significant correlations with variations of the monsoon-related western Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) and the westerlies-related North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). We then reconstructed the dipole pattern back to 1511 by tree rings, which was consistent with the reconstructed NAO at interdecadal timescale. Our reconstruction revealed long-term changes of monsoon-westerlies boundaries and provided evidence of their linkages with the NAO. Apart from anthropogenic forcing, climate internal variability also play a critical role in modulations of the dipole mode between ASM and westerlies at interdecadal timescale.

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Data availability

We have uploaded the tree-ring data and the reconstruction series to the network disk (https://pan.baidu.com/s/1p79-I6H_NAoOHz4p6E0mYQ Code: j4qv). The Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) can be obtained from (https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/palmer-drought-severity-index-pdsi). The sea surface temperature and geopotential height dataset are derived from (http://climexp.knmi.nl). The tree-ring chronologies can be downloaded from (www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data/datasets).

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Acknowledgements

The research was partially supported by the National Science Foundation of China (41888101, 41971022, and 41772180).

Funding

This research is funded by the Young Scientists Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 32201573), National Science Foundation of China (41888101, 41971022, and 41772180), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB26020000), the Natural Science Foundation Project of Fujian Province (2017J0101), fellowship for Youth Talent Support Program of Fujian Province and the innovation team project (IRTL1705). Amy Hudson and Valerie Trouet were supported by a National Science Foundation CAREER grant (AGS-1349942). This research is also funded by the Swedish Formas project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wildfire Research Center, National Institute of Natural Hazards, Beijing, 100085, China

    Qichao Yao

  2. Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA

    Qichao Yao, Amy Hudson & Valerie Trouet

  3. Department of Statistics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA

    Ben Zheng

  4. Key Laboratory of Humid Subtropical Eco-Geographical Process (MOE), College of Geographic Sciences, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, 350007, China

    Keyan Fang & Feifei Zhou

  5. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80526, USA

    Haonan Chen & Haiming Tan

  6. NOAA/Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, CO, USA

    Haonan Chen

  7. College of Forestry, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China

    Futao Guo

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  1. Qichao Yao
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Contributions

All the authors contribute to the preparation of the manuscript. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Ben Zheng, Amy Hudson, Feifei Zhou, Haonan Chen, Haiming Tan, and Valerie Trouet. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Qichao Yao, Keyan Fang, and Futao Guo, all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Keyan Fang or Futao Guo.

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Yao, Q., Zheng, B., Fang, K. et al. Modulations of NAO on the interplay between monsoon and westerlies in Asia on interdecadal timescales. Clim Dyn 62, 4031–4040 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-024-07115-3

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