1 Erratum to: Clim Dyn (2011) 36:2357–2370 DOI 10.1007/s00382-010-0913-0

In the original publication incorrect information was published in the Acknowledgment section and the correct statement is given below:

Acknowledgments This work is jointly supported by National Science foundation (NSF) grants ATM 0938027 and ATM 1034439, and NSF of China (NSFC) grants (40705021, 40805028), 973 Program (2010CB950404), the National Science and Technology Support Program of China (2007BAC29B03), and the Meteorological Special Project (GYHY200806005, GYHY200906015). J.-S. Kug is supported by the Korea Meteorological Administration Research and Development Program under Grant CATER_2010-2209. The authors especially express their thanks to J.-X. Zhao and A. F. Z. Levine for their careful proof-reading and revising.