Effect of Warm SST in the Subtropical Eastern North Pacific on Triggering the Abrupt Change of the Mei-Yu Rainfall over South China in the Early 1990s

Abstract

AbstractIn the early 1990s, the mei-yu rainfall over South China in early boreal summer exhibited an abrupt change and northward extension. This change altered the pattern of East Asian summer rainfall from a dipole-like to a monopole-like pattern; that is, the out-of-phase relationship between the rainfall in the south and that in the north of the Yangtze and Huaihe River valley changed to an in-phase relationship. The physical processes potentially responsible for triggering this abrupt change were analyzed in this study. Our observations revealed that the western North Pacific subtropical high (WNPSH), sea surface temperature (SST) in the subtropical eastern North Pacific (SENP), and the mei-yu rainfall in South China exhibited an abrupt increase in the early 1990s, suggesting that these factors are correlated. From the observations and results of numerical experiments, we proposed that the abrupt SST warming in the SENP in the early 1990s generated an east–west overturning circulation anomaly in the Pacific Ocean and that the anomalous downward motion in the western North Pacific consequently triggered the abrupt increase and westward extension of the WNPSH in the early 1990s. The enhanced and westward extension of WNPSH created a low-level southeasterly anomaly that transported considerable humid and warm air into East Asia and sequentially triggered the abrupt increase of mei-yu rainfall in the South China in the early 1990s.