Abstract

The Yangtze river basin, in South East China, experiences anomalously high precipitation in summers following El Niño. This can lead to extensive flooding and loss of life. However, the response following La Niña has not been well documented. In this study, the response of Yangtze summer rainfall to El Niño/La Niña is found to be asymmetric, with no significant response following La Niña. The nature of this asymmetric response is found to be in good agreement with that simulated by the Met Office seasonal forecast system. Yangtze summer rainfall correlates positively with spring sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean and northwest Pacific. Indian Ocean sea surface temperatures are found to respond linearly to El Niño/La Niña, and to have a linear impact on Yangtze summer rainfall. However, northwest Pacific sea surface temperatures respond much more strongly following El Niño and, further, correlate more strongly with positive rainfall years. It is concluded that, whilst delayed Indian Ocean signals may influence summer Yangtze rainfall, it is likely that they do not lead to the asymmetric nature of the rainfall response to El Niño/La Niña.

Details

Title
The asymmetric response of Yangtze river basin summer rainfall to El Niño/La Niña
Author
Hardiman, Steven C 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Dunstone, Nick J 2 ; Scaife, Adam A 3 ; Bett, Philip E 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Li, Chaofan 4 ; Lu, Bo 5 ; Hong-Li, Ren 5 ; Smith, Doug M 2 ; Stephan, Claudia C 6 

1  Met Office, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom; Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. 
2  Met Office, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom 
3  Met Office, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom; College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom 
4  Center for Monsoon System Research, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China 
5  Laboratory for Climate Studies, National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, People’s Republic of China 
6  Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom 
Publication year
2018
Publication date
Feb 2018
Publisher
IOP Publishing
e-ISSN
17489326
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa172
ProQuest document ID
2549134802
Copyright
© 2018. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.