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Interannual relationship between South Pacific meridional sea surface temperature dipole and rainfall anomalies over South China in late-spring to early-summer without ENSO impact

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Abstract

The first rainy season (FRS) in South China from late-spring to early-summer represents the beginning of the summer monsoon rainy season over eastern China. This study investigates the interannual relationship between the South Pacific meridional sea surface temperature (SST) dipole (SPMD) and the concurrent FRS precipitation anomalies over South China during April–June (AMJ) without El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) impact. During AMJ, after removing the concurrent ENSO signal through the linear regression, the first empirical orthogonal function (EOF) mode of SST anomalies in the South Pacific exhibits a meridional dipole with warming in the tropical southeastern Pacific and cooling in mid-latitudes of the South Pacific. The first EOF mode is referred to as the SPMD pattern. The off-equatorial enhanced diabatic heating associated with the northeastern pole of the SPMD triggers low-level cross-equatorial northerlies in the tropical north central Pacific (TNCP) through the Matsuno–Gill type response. The anomalous northerly and its associated TNCP SST cooling lead to a Northwest Pacific anomalous anticyclone (NWP-AAC) via the wind-evaporation-SST feedback. The atmospheric general circulation model sensitivity experiments further suggest that the SPMD can induce the NWP-AAC directly or collaboratively with the TNCP SST cooling. Additionally, anomalous moisture can be transported from the tropical western Pacific into South China, giving rise to enhancement of the FRS precipitation. The Liang–Kleeman information flow for causality analysis and ensemble mean of 30-member atmospheric model simulation results further suggest a robust physical pathway that the SPMD is related to the FRS precipitation over South China when ENSO absents. Our results may deepen the understanding of interannual rainfall variability in South China in non-ENSO years.

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Data availability

The 2479 stations in China at daily resolution is download at https://www.resdc.cn/data.aspx?DATAID=230. The HadISST data is provided by Met Office Hadley Centre at https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisst/data/download.html. The monthly NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data is provided by NOAA/ESRL Physical Sciences Laboratory from their website at https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.derived.html. The CMAP precipitation data can be downloaded at https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.cmap.html. The 30-member ensemble of ECHAM5 atmospheric model simulations is provided by the Facility for Climate Assessments (FACTS) at https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/repository/alias/facts.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. The corresponding author X. W. also wish to thank Professor Xiangsan Liang and Dr. Yineng Rong from Fudan University for providing the code of information flow and their suggestive advice. Authors acknowledge the High Performance Computing Center of Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology for their support of this work.

Funding

This research is jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants No. 42088101 and 42205016), and the open project of the State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography (Project No. LTO1918 and LTO2211). Y. Z is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (202213050), the project funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2021M703034), and Laoshan Laboratory (LSKJ202202602).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Ministry of Education (KLME)/Joint International Research Laboratory of Climate and Environment Change (ILCEC)/Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters (CIC-FEMD), Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Dachao Jin & Jing Zhu

  2. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and Institute of Atmospheric Sciences/CMA-FDU Joint Laboratory of Marine Meteorology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Xudong Wang

  3. Frontiers Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System/Physical Oceanography Laboratory/Sanya Oceanographic Institution, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China

    Yu Zhang

  4. Laoshan Laboratory, Qingdao, China

    Yu Zhang

  5. State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China

    Sheng Chen

  6. Innovation Academy of South China Sea Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China

    Sheng Chen

  7. Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, China

    Sheng Chen

  8. Liupanshui Meteorological Bureau, Liupanshui, 553000, China

    Yang Xia

  9. Guizhou Key Laboratory of Mountainous Climate and Resource, Guiyang, 550002, China

    Yang Xia

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  1. Dachao Jin
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  3. Yu Zhang
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  4. Sheng Chen
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  6. Jing Zhu
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DJ and XW conceived and designed the study. DJ and XW wrote the main manuscript text. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xudong Wang.

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Jin, D., Wang, X., Zhang, Y. et al. Interannual relationship between South Pacific meridional sea surface temperature dipole and rainfall anomalies over South China in late-spring to early-summer without ENSO impact. Clim Dyn 61, 5233–5245 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-06852-1

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