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Variability of cold season surface air temperature over northeastern China and its linkage with large-scale atmospheric circulations

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Abstract

Cold temperature anomalies and extremes have profound effects on the society, the economy, and the environment of northeastern China (NEC). In this study, we define the cold season as the months from October to April, and investigate the variability of cold season surface air temperature (CSAT) over NEC and its relationships with large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns for the period 1981–2014. The empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis shows that the first EOF mode of the CSAT over NEC is characterized by a homogeneous structure that describes 92.2% of the total variance. The regionally averaged CSAT over NEC is closely linked with the Arctic Oscillation (r = 0.62, 99% confidence level) and also has a statistically significant relation with the Polar/Eurasian pattern in the cold season. The positive phases of the Arctic Oscillation and the Polar/Eurasian pattern tend to result in a positive geopotential height anomaly over NEC and a weakened East Asian winter monsoon, which subsequently increase the CSAT over NEC by enhancing the downward solar radiation, strengthening the subsidence warming and warm air advection. Conversely, the negative phases of these two climate indices result in opposite regional atmospheric circulation anomalies and decrease the CSAT over NEC.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions that improve the quality of the manuscript. The CRU TS4.00 data is available at https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hrg/. The ERA-Interim data is available at http://apps.ecmwf.int/datasets/. The climate indices are stored at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/climateindices/list/. This work is supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (2012CB955604) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41275089 and 41305071). Jingyong Zhang is also supported by the Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Climate Change.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Monsoon System Research, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Yuanhuang Zhuang, Jingyong Zhang & Lin Wang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Yuanhuang Zhuang & Jingyong Zhang

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  1. Yuanhuang Zhuang
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Correspondence to Yuanhuang Zhuang.

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Zhuang, Y., Zhang, J. & Wang, L. Variability of cold season surface air temperature over northeastern China and its linkage with large-scale atmospheric circulations. Theor Appl Climatol 132, 1261–1273 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-017-2166-x

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