Abstract
Previous studies indicated that sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the Tropical Northern Atlantic (TNAT) have significant impacts on the August rainfall over the monsoon transitional belt (MTB) in China through inducing an atmospheric wave train over Eurasia and an anomalous anticyclone over the subtropical western North Pacific (STWNP). This study reveals that the MTB rainfall-TNAT SST linkage experiences a clear interdecadal shift around the late 1990s. The relationship was strong and significant before the late 1990s, whereas it became fairly weak after the late 1990s. Our result shows that the shift in spatial structure of Eurasian wave train induced by the TNAT SST plays an important role in the changes of the TNAT SST-MTB rainfall relationship. Before late 1990s, positive TNAT SST anomalies induces an atmospheric wave train emanating from the North Atlantic and propagating eastward to East Asia, with negative geopotential height anomalies over the MTB. In addition, a clear anticyclonic anomaly is induced over the STWNP. As such, TNAT SST anomalies have a significant impact on the MTB rainfall. After late 1990s, TNAT SST anomalies can also induce an anticyclonic anomaly over the STWNP and an atmospheric wave train over the Eurasia. However, spatial structure of the Eurasian wave train shows a significant difference. In particular, the negative geopotential height anomaly locates more northward after the late 1990s. Thus, the MTB rainfall-TNAT SST relation is weak. Further analysis also indicates that change in the MTB rainfall-TNAT SST relation is not related to change in the El Niño Southern Oscillation/North Atlantic Oscillation-TNAT SST relation.
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Acknowledgments
We thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions, which helped to improve the paper
Funding
This study is jointly supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant no. 2016YFA0600604), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 41461144001, 41605050 and 41721004), the Chinese Academy of Sciences “Belt and Road Initiatives” Program on International Cooperation: Climate Change Research and Observation Project (134111KYSB20160010) and the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by the China Association for Science and Technology (2016QNRC001).
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Zhao, W., Chen, W., Chen, S. et al. Interdecadal change in the impact of North Atlantic SST on August rainfall over the monsoon transitional belt in China around the late 1990s. Theor Appl Climatol 140, 503–516 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-020-03102-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-020-03102-w