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Intensifying effects of El Niño events on winter precipitation extremes in southeastern China

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Abstract

This paper studies the impacts of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on wintertime extreme precipitation in China from 1961 to 2017, and possibly different influences of two El Niño types are also examined. We find that ENSO poses profound influences on extreme precipitation in many portions of China. El Niño (La Niña) intensifies (weakens) the winter precipitation extremes in southeastern China (SEC) and slightly weakens (intensifies) those in central-north China, mainly by changing the frequency rather than the intensity of extreme precipitation. Further analysis suggests that the East Asian winter monsoon tends to be weaker during El Niño winters, suppressing the southward invasion of cold dry air. Via the weakened Walker circulation, El Niño also triggers anomalously descending motion and anticyclone over the western North Pacific (WNP), which exhibits southwesterly anomalies over SEC and is thus conducive to the transport of sufficient moisture into that area. The changes over WNP are also accompanied by ascending motions over East Asia via a local meridional circulation alike the Pacific–Japan pattern. Meanwhile, El Niño induces a southward-displaced East Asian jet stream, as characterized by intensified westerly over southern China, corresponding to anomalously ascending motion there. Together, these changes facilitate the updrafts of circulations and the condensation of water vapor, thus increasing the occurrence of extreme precipitation events in SEC. Moreover, we find that different Niño types exhibit distinct subregional influences. In particular, the canonical eastern Pacific El Niño significantly increases the frequency of extreme precipitation in South China, whereas the Modoki central Pacific El Niño mainly impacts that in East China.

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Acknowledgements

This study is jointly funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41871029, 41401052), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (No. 18lgzd04), Natural Science Foundation and Sci-tech development project of Shandong Province (No. ZR2018MD014; J18KA210) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 119100582H; 1191005830). The authors are very grateful to the editor and four anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions that greatly helped improve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Urban Construction, Heze University, Heze, 274000, China

    Tao Gao

  2. State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Tao Gao

  3. Key Laboratory of Environmental Change and Natural Disaster of Ministry of Education, State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, and Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management of Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Qiang Zhang

  4. School of Geography and Planning, and Guangdong Key Laboratory for Urbanization and Geo-simulation, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Ming Luo

  5. Institute of Environment, Energy and Sustainability, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Ming Luo

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Gao, T., Zhang, Q. & Luo, M. Intensifying effects of El Niño events on winter precipitation extremes in southeastern China. Clim Dyn 54, 631–648 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-019-05022-6

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