Premium
Nonlinear Meridional Moisture Advection and the ENSO ‐Southern China Rainfall Teleconnection
Author(s) -
Wang Qiang,
Cai Wenju,
Zeng Lili,
Wang Dongxiao
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2018gl077446
Subject(s) - teleconnection , zonal and meridional , climatology , advection , anomaly (physics) , precipitation , meridional flow , forcing (mathematics) , atmospheric sciences , moisture , environmental science , sea surface temperature , geology , el niño southern oscillation , geography , physics , meteorology , condensed matter physics , thermodynamics
Abstract In the boreal cooler months of 2015, southern China (SC) experienced the largest rainfall since 1950, exceeding 4 times the standard deviation of SC rainfall. Although an El Niño typically induces a positive SC rainfall anomaly during these months, the unprecedented rainfall increase cannot be explained by the strong El Niño of 2015/2016, and the dynamics is unclear. Here we show that a nonlinear meridional moisture advection contributes substantially to the unprecedented rainfall increase. During cooler months of 2015, the meridional flow anomaly over the South China Sea region, which acts on an El Niño‐induced anomalous meridional moisture gradient, is particularly large and is supported by an anomalous zonal sea surface temperature gradient over the northwestern Pacific, which recorded its largest value in 2015 since 1950. Our study highlights, for the first time, the importance of the nonlinear process associated with the combined impact of a regional sea surface temperature gradient and large‐scale El Niño anomalies in forcing El Niño rainfall teleconnection.