A Monsoon-Like Southwest Australian Circulation and Its Relation with Rainfall in Southwest Western Australia

Abstract

Abstract Using the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis, the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40), and precipitation data from the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP) and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, the variability and circulation features influencing southwest Western Australia (SWWA) winter rainfall are investigated. It is found that the climate of southwest Australia bears a strong seasonality in the annual cycle and exhibits a monsoon-like atmospheric circulation, which is called the southwest Australian circulation (SWAC) because of its several distinct features characterizing a monsoonal circulation: the seasonal reversal of winds, alternate wet and dry seasons, and an evident land–sea thermal contrast. The seasonal march of the SWAC in extended winter (May–October) is demonstrated by pentad data. An index based on the dynamics’ normalized seasonality was introduced to describe the behavior and variation of the winter SWAC. It is found that the winter rainfall over SWWA has a significant positive correlation with the SWAC index in both early (May–July) and late (August–October) winter. In weaker winter SWAC years, there is an anticyclonic anomaly over the southern Indian Ocean resulting in weaker westerlies and northerlies, which are not favorable for more rainfall over SWWA, and the opposite combination is true in the stronger winter SWAC years. The SWAC explains not only a large portion of the interannual variability of SWWA rainfall in both early and late winter but also the long-term drying trend over SWWA in early winter. The well-coupled SWAC–SWWA rainfall relationship seems to be largely independent of the well-known effects of large-scale atmospheric circulations such as the southern annular mode (SAM), El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Indian Ocean dipole (IOD), and ENSO Modoki (EM). The result offers qualified support for the argument that the monsoon-like circulation may contribute to the rainfall decline in early winter over SWWA. The external forcing of the SWAC is also explored in this study.