Northeast China summer temperature and North Atlantic SST

Abstract

[1] A previous study revealed a close relationship between interannual variations of northeast China (NEC) summer temperature and a tripole sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly pattern in the North Atlantic in preceding spring. The present study investigates the change in the above relationship and the plausible causes for the change. A tripole SST index is defined with its positive value corresponding to positive SST anomalies in the tropics and midlatitudes and negative SST anomalies in the subtropics. The tripole SST anomaly pattern has a weak correlation with NEC summer temperature during the 1950s through the mid-1970s, in sharp contrast to the 1980s and 1990s. This change is related to the difference in the persistence of the tripole SST pattern. Before the late 1970s, the tripole SST pattern weakened from spring to summer, and thus, the spring North Atlantic tripole SST pattern had a weak connection with NEC summer temperature. On the contrary, after the late 1970s, the tripole SST pattern displayed a tendency of persistence from spring to summer, contributing to circulation changes that affected NEC summer temperature. There are two factors for the persistence of the tripole SST pattern from spring to summer. One is the North Atlantic air-sea interaction, and the other is the persistence of SST anomalies in the eastern equatorial Pacific during the decay of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). It is shown that the North Atlantic SST anomalies can have an impact on NEC summer temperature independent of ENSO.

Remote impact of North Atlantic sea surface temperature on rainfall in southwestern China during boreal spring

“…This study demonstrates that as an important oceanic signal, the North Atlantic SST not only has an influence on climate variability over Northeast China (Wu et al 2011) and East China (Gu et al 2009;Wang et al 2011) but also can affects the climate variability over SWC through the teleconnection atmospheric circulation pattern.…”

“…In particular, many studies have pointed out that North Atlantic SST can influence the climate variability over East Asia through a North Atlantic-Asia teleconnection (Gu et al 2009;Wang et al 2011;Wu et al 2011Wu et al , 2012Kim et al 2013Kim et al , 2014Wu and Zhang 2015). For example, Gu et al (2009) suggested that North Atlantic SST during boreal winter can influence the following East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) on decadal time scales.…”

“…On interannual time scales, Wang et al (2011) revealed that North Atlantic SST during boreal summer can influence the subsequent East Asian winter monsoon, which may favor initiating an El Niño event during boreal winter. In addition, North Atlantic SST during boreal spring can exert impact on the EASM and summer temperatures in northeast China through a Rossby wave train extending from Europe to Asia on interannual time scales (Wu et al 2011). Wu et al (2012) suggested that the North Atlantic SST can excite downstream teleconnections of a distinct Rossby wave train prevailing over the northern Eurasia, and then influence EASM.…”

The sea surface temperature configuration of Greenland Sea–subpolar region of North Atlantic and the summer rainfall anomaly in low‐latitude highlands of China

“…Wu et al (2010; found that the connection between the northeast China summer temperature and the NA SST anomaly has been strengthened after the late 1970s, because the persistence of tripole NA SST pattern from spring to summer is stronger than the 1950s and mid1970s. Some studies indicated that the coupled relationship between the North Atlantic tripole SST and North Atlantic Oscillation could lead to a strong EASM via modulating the blocking highs in the Ural Mountain and Okhotsk Sea (Wu et al, 2009;Wu et al, 2011;Zuo et al, 2012;. Lü et al (2017) revealed that a dipolar SST anomaly in the northeastern Atlantic is closely related to consecutive extreme rainfall events over central eastern China through the propagation of Rossby waves.…”

Early summer southern China rainfall variability and its oceanic drivers

“…4b; Table 1). Previous studies have suggested that the North Atlantic tripole-like SST anomalies tend to occur during the ENSO-decaying spring and summer (Xie and Carton 2004;Wu et al 2011). Though the MA NAT index is significantly correlated with the previous DJF Niño3.4 index (R = 0.42), the correlation coefficient between the MA (MJ) NAT and the MJ SCD indices still reaches 0.38 (0.46) after removing the ENSO signal during 1979-2014, significant at the 95% confidence level (Table 1).…”