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How can the winter North Atlantic Oscillation influence the early summer precipitation in Northeast Asia: effect of the Arctic sea ice

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Abstract

The early summer (May–June) precipitation in Northeast Asia (NEA) accounts for about 25% of the annual total, which is important for the local agriculture production. The potential influencing factors and the related mechanisms of early summer NEA precipitation variability, however, are not fully understood. Our study suggests that a dipolar NEA precipitation anomaly pattern in May–June highly resembles the second leading mode of NEA early summer precipitation variability, can be induced by the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) through the “capacitor” effect of the Barents sea ice (BSI). Further analysis indicated that during negative NAO winter, anomalous northerlies controlling the Barents Sea tend to increase the local sea ice and reach its peak in spring. The BSI anomalies persist from spring to the following early summer generates the “positive–negative–positive” geopotential height anomalies occupying the Arctic, Kamchatka, and extra-tropical western Pacific. The southerlies on the west flank of the anomalous extra-tropical western Pacific anticyclone advect sufficient water vapor from the Pacific to southern NEA, concurrent with lower-troposphere convergence, leading to rich rainfall over Korea and southern Japan. In contrast, the lower-level divergence may reduce the precipitation over northern NEA. At last, a physical-based empirical model is established using the winter NAO index. It shows that the winter NAO provides a promising predictability source for this anomalous NEA dipolar precipitation pattern.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank three anonymous referees’ relevant comments that led to a much-improved manuscript. Thanks also are extended to Prof. Bingyi Wu for fruitful discussions. This work is jointly supported by the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (STEP) program (Grant No. 2019QZKK0102), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41905056, 91937302 and 41790475), the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant Nos. 2019YFC1509100, 2017YFC1502302) and Climate Change Project of China Meteorological Administration CCSF202022.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and Institute of Atmospheric Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Peng Zhang, Zhiwei Wu & Rui **

  2. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Meteorology and Health, Shanghai, 200030, China

    Peng Zhang & Zhiwei Wu

  3. State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei**g, 100029, China

    Peng Zhang

  4. Shanghai Typhoon Institute, China Meteorological Administration, Shanghai, 200030, China

    Rui **

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  1. Peng Zhang
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Zhang, P., Wu, Z. & **, R. How can the winter North Atlantic Oscillation influence the early summer precipitation in Northeast Asia: effect of the Arctic sea ice. Clim Dyn 56, 1989–2005 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05570-2

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