Abstract
The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is an important intraseasonal climate signal which circles the global tropics, but also impacts extratropical weather regimes. Few studies have investigated whether the MJO is a source of regional seasonal climate predictability. The present objective is to determine the extent to which the season and phase (geographic location) of MJO contribute to the frequency of global rainfall anomalies in ensuing seasons. Indices of June-July-August and December-January-February MJO activity for each phase and the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) were correlated to three-month averages of rainfall up to a six-month lead time. Field significance was calculated and patterns of the relationships were described. In general, MJO shows some skill in regional seasonal precipitation prediction, but to a lesser extent than ENSO. However, the presence of MJO in the western Indian Ocean and near the date line did reveal a persistent and significant relationship with regional seasonal rainfall, especially over Northern Hemisphere land areas.
Highlights
The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), broadly defined as intraseasonal climate variability in the tropics, has recently been identified as an important bridge between weather and climate [1].Typically, the MJO is used to predict extratropical weather regimes in the gap between synoptic weather prediction and seasonal outlooks [2,3]
The state of the MJO is routinely monitored with the real-time multivariate MJO (RMM) index [4], which is derived from a combined empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis of tropical winds and outgoing longwave radiation
To enable a more detailed depiction of seasonal precipitation over land, the GPCC 1◦ latitude-longitude resolution version 7 (Deutscher Wetterdienst, Offenbach, Germany) product was combined with the GPCC monitoring and real-time products to achieve the same period of record as Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) [15]
Summary
The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), broadly defined as intraseasonal climate variability in the tropics, has recently been identified as an important bridge between weather and climate [1]. The distribution of rainfall and extreme events has been found to undergo significant changes over many areas of the world during active and quiescent phases of the MJO [5,6]. Sometimes it is the accumulated effect of the MJO over a season that is more important for climate teleconnections. Oscillation (NAO) or Pacific North American (PNA) pattern [9] This leads to the potential for MJO to be an important climate predictor at the seasonal time scale.
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