A statistical downscaling model is built for the late-winter rainfall over Southwest China(SWC).A partial-correlation method is used for selecting factors.The results show that the selected factors for late-winter rainfall in SWC are sea level pressure in Western Europe(SNAO)and sea surface temperature in Western Pacific(WPT).SNAO is related to the southern pole of North Atlantic Oscillation(NAO)and excites Southern Eurasian teleconnection,which influences the development of the southern branch trough and the water vapor transport to SWC.WPT indicates the variability of ENSO in the tropical Western Pacific.WPT excites Pacific-East Asia teleconnection and an anticyclone(cyclone)is formed in the southern part of China and suppresses(enhances)rainfall over SWC.A regression statistical downscaling model using SNAO and WPT shows good performance in fitting the variability of late-winter rainfall in the whole SWC region and every observation station,and the model also shows strong robustness in the independent validation.The statistical model can be used for downscaling output from seasonal forecast numerical models and improve the SWC late winter rainfall prediction in the future.
This study examined the impact of the preceding boreal summer(June–August) North Atlantic Oscillation(NAO) on early autumn(September) rainfall over Central China(RCC). The results show that a significant positive correlation exists between the preceding summer NAO and the early autumn RCC on the interannual timescale. In order to understand the physical mechanism between them, the role of ocean was investigated. It was found that the strong summer NAO can induce a tripole sea surface temperature anomaly(SSTA) in the North Atlantic; this SSTA pattern can persist until early autumn. The diagnostic analysis showed that the tripole SSTA pattern excites a downstream Atlantic-Eurasian(AEA) teleconnection, which contributes to an increase in RCC. The circulation anomalies related to SSTA caused by the weak NAO are opposite, so the RCC is less than normal. The results imply that the preceding summer NAO may be regarded as a forecast factor for the early autumn RCC.
