Abstract
Previous studies reported that summer rainfall in the eastern Tibetan Plateau (TP) is affected by the sea surface temperature (SST) in the tropical southeastern Indian Ocean (SEIO). In this study, we found that their relationship has enhanced significantly during the second period of 1984–2015 (P2) compared to the first period of 1951–1983 (P1). The anomalous anticyclone to the south of the TP is the major factor favoring ocean moisture transported to the eastern TP (ETP) and resultant local above-normal rainfall anomalies. However, the anomalous anticyclone is only significantly correlated with warm SEIO SST anomalies in P2. Further studies of possible reasons show that warm summer SEIO SST anomalies are accompanied by a stronger typical El Niño in the preceding winter of P2. It results in warmer SST anomalies in the tropical Indian Ocean, including the SEIO, and colder SST anomalies in the central Pacific in summer of P2. On the one hand, the increased warming in the whole tropical Indian Ocean emanates Kelvin waves to trigger stronger suppressed convection over the western North Pacific. It induces the anomalous anticyclone to the south of the TP by exciting westward-propagating Rossby waves in P2. On the other hand, the tropical warmer SEIO and colder Pacific SST anomalies produce anomalous Walker cells, triggering stronger equatorial easterly anomalies. The equatorial easterly anomalies and suppressed convection to the south of the TP also induced by warmer SEIO SST through meridional circulation jointly contribute to formation of the significant local anomalous anticyclone in P2.
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Data Availability
The precipitation data was obtained from the APHRODITE’s Water Resources (http://aphrodite.st.hirosaki-u.ac.jp/download/#). The monthly SST was obtained from Hadley Center (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisst/data/download.html). The OLR data was obtained from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.olrcdr.interp.html). The data of atmospheric circulation was obtained from NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis 1 (https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.html).
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Acknowledgements
This study was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 42075045 and U20A2097), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant XDA20100300), the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research program (Grant 2019QZKK0106) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 41775084).
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Qian Ren was responsible for data calculation, figures processing and results analyses. Xingwen Jiang designed the study scheme and was responsible for analysis of physical mechanisam. Renrui Shi was reponsible for data collection and complilation. All authors contributed to the manuscript preparation.
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Ren, Q., Jiang, X. & Shi, R. The enhanced relationship between summer rainfall over the eastern Tibetan Plateau and sea surface temperature in the tropical Indo-Pacific Ocean. Clim Dyn 60, 4017–4031 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06509-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06509-5