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Regional trends in early-monsoon rainfall over Vietnam and CCSM4 attribution

Climate Dynamics volume 52, pages 363–372 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

The analysis of precipitation trends for Vietnam revealed that early-monsoon precipitation has increased over the past three decades but to varying degrees over the northern, central and southern portions of the country. Upon investigation, it was found that the change in early-monsoon precipitation is associated with changes in the low-level cyclonic airflow over the South China Sea and Indochina that is embedded in the large-scale atmospheric circulation associated with a “La Niña-like” anomalous sea surface temperature pattern with warming in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans and cooling in the eastern Pacific. The Community Climate System Model version 4 (CCSM4) was subsequently used for an attribution analysis. Over northern Vietnam an early-monsoon increase in precipitation is attributed to changes in both greenhouse gases and natural forcing. For central Vietnam, the observed increase in early-monsoon precipitation is reproduced by the simulation forced with greenhouse gases. However, over southern Vietnam the early-monsoon precipitation increase is less definitive where aerosols were seen to be preponderant but natural forcing through the role of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation may well be a factor that is not resolved by CCSM4. Increased early-monsoonal precipitation over the coastal lowland and deltas has the potential to amplify economic and human losses.

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Acknowledgements

PREC/L Precipitation data and NCEP Reanalysis data were provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their Web site at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/. J.-H. Yoon was supported by the GIST Research Institute (GRI) Grant funded by the GIST in 2018. Lamont-Doherty Contribution No. 8209.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Utah Climate Center, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA

    R. Li, S. S.-Y. Wang, R. R. Gillies & C. Cho

  2. Department of Plants, Soils, and Climate, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA

    R. Li, S. S.-Y. Wang, R. R. Gillies & C. Cho

  3. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA

    B. M. Buckley

  4. School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Gwangju, Republic of Korea

    J.-H. Yoon

Authors
  1. R. Li
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  2. S. S.-Y. Wang
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  3. R. R. Gillies
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  4. B. M. Buckley
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  5. J.-H. Yoon
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  6. C. Cho
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to R. Li.

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Li, R., Wang, S.SY., Gillies, R.R. et al. Regional trends in early-monsoon rainfall over Vietnam and CCSM4 attribution. Clim Dyn 52, 363–372 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4198-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4198-z

Keywords

  • Long-term precipitation trends
  • Climate regimes of Vietnam
  • Attribution analysis
  • Greenhouses gases
  • Aerosols
  • Natural forcing
  • And climate change