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Interannual variability of autumn to spring seasonal precipitation in eastern China

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Abstract

The interannual variability of seasonal precipitation in eastern China from fall to following spring is examined for the period of 1951–2004 based on observations at 106 stations. The temporal variability of seasonal mean values is decomposed into intraseasonal (fast) and slow (potentially predictable) components. EOF analysis is then applied to both the fast and predictable components. We find that (1) the most predictable signal migrates in a north–south direction along with the annual cycle of the monsoon in east China, while spatial patterns of the leading fast modes does not change much; (2) the predictable signal of precipitation in eastern China is associated with anomalous atmospheric circulation patterns having more zonally symmetric structures while the fast time-varying precipitation components are accompanied by wavy anomalous atmospheric circulation patterns; (3) the most predictable signal has an apparent 1-season lagged correlation with the interannual variation of sea surface temperature associated with El Niño/Southern Oscillation; (4) The fast rainfall component is largely attributed to the intraseasonal variabilities of the Siberian High over the Eurasian continent and the subtropical high associated with the Western-Pacific-Oscillation-like variabilities over the North Pacific; and (5) The ENSO signal in the fall seasonal precipitation persisted throughout the entire 54-year period while the signal in winter intensified significantly after the mid-1970s. This is attributed to the weaker/stronger intensification of ENSO anomalies in the tropical Pacific during the fall/winter.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Program on Key Basic Research Projects of China (Grant No. 2010CB951604), National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2012CB956203), and Key Technologies Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2013BAC05B04). The authors thank the anonymous reviewers of this paper whose informative and insightful comments/suggestions have bean very helpful and greatly improved the quality of the paper. We also grateful to the editors for their hard work and suggestions on this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Kairan Ying & Xiaogu Zheng

  2. Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environment Research for East Asia, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Kairan Ying & Tianbao Zhao

  3. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder and NOAA/ESRL/PSD, Boulder, CO, USA

    Xiao-Wei Quan

  4. The Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, Australia

    Carsten S. Frederiksen

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  1. Kairan Ying
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Correspondence to Xiao-Wei Quan.

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Ying, K., Zhao, T., Quan, XW. et al. Interannual variability of autumn to spring seasonal precipitation in eastern China. Clim Dyn 45, 253–271 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2411-2

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