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Impact of El Niño on atmospheric circulations over East Asia and rainfall in China: Role of the anomalous western North Pacific anticyclone

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Abstract

This paper presents a review on the impact of El Niño on the interannual variability of atmospheric circulations over East Asia and rainfall in China through the anomalous anticyclone over western North Pacific (WNPAC). It explains the formation mechanisms of the WNPAC and physical processes by which the WNPAC affects the rainfall in China. During the mature phase of El Niño, the convective cooling anomalies over western tropical Pacific caused by the weakened convections trigger up an atmospheric Rossby wave response, resulting in the generation of the WNPAC. The WNPAC can persist from the winter when the El Niño is in its peak to subsequent summer, which is maintained by multiple factors including the sustained presence of convective cooling anomalies and the local air-sea interaction over western tropical Pacific, and the persistence of sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) in tropical Indian and tropical North Atlantic. The WNPAC can influence the atmospheric circulations over East Asia and rainfall in China not only simultaneously, but also in the subsequent summer after an El Niño year, leading to more rainfall over southern China. The current paper also points out that significant anomalies of atmospheric circulations over East Asia and rainfall over southern China occur in El Niño winter but not in La Niña winter, suggesting that El Niño and La Niña have an asymmetric effect. Other issues, including the impact of El Niño diversity and its impact as well as the relations of the factors affecting the persistence of the WNPAC with summer rainfall anomalies in China, are also discussed. At the end of this paper some issues calling for further investigation are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful for the constructive comments from anonymous reviewers. This study was supported by the National Key Project for Basic Science Development (Grant No. 2015CB453203), the National Key Research and Development Program (Grant No. 2016YFA0600602), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41661144017).

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    RenHe Zhang & QingYe Min

  2. Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China

    RenHe Zhang & JingZhi Su

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  1. RenHe Zhang
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Correspondence to RenHe Zhang.

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Zhang, R., Min, Q. & Su, J. Impact of El Niño on atmospheric circulations over East Asia and rainfall in China: Role of the anomalous western North Pacific anticyclone. Sci. China Earth Sci. 60, 1124–1132 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-016-9026-x

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