Spatiotemporal Decompositions of Summer Drought in China and Its Teleconnection with Global Sea Surface Temperatures during 1901-2012

• Published in: Journal of Climate
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yaxin, Wu, Mengxi, Li, Delong, Liu, Yonggang, Li, Shuangcheng
• Other Authors: Li, SC (reprint author), Peking Univ, Coll Urban & Environm Sci, Beijing, Peoples R China.; Li, SC (reprint author), Peking Univ, Key Lab Earth Surface Proc, Minist Educ, Beijing, Peoples R China., Peking Univ, Coll Urban & Environm Sci, Beijing, Peoples R China., Peking Univ, Key Lab Earth Surface Proc, Minist Educ, Beijing, Peoples R China., Brown Univ, Dept Earth Environm & Planetary Sci, Providence, RI 02912 USA., Peking Univ, Coll Phys, Beijing, Peoples R China., Li, SC (reprint author), Peking Univ, Key Lab Earth Surface Proc, Minist Educ, Beijing, Peoples R China.
• Format: Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: JOURNAL OF CLIMATE 2017
• Subjects: PACIFIC DECADAL OSCILLATION; NORTH-AMERICA; TIME-SERIES; CLIMATE; ENSO; VARIABILITY; IMPACT; 20TH-CENTURY; CIRCULATION; MODULATION; Pacific; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11897/471859; https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0405.1

The teleconnection between the summer (June-August) Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) in China and seasonal global sea surface temperatures (SSTs) is investigated at both spatial and temporal scales during 1901-2012. Three pairs of coupled spatial patterns for China's PDSI and global SST anomalies are identified using the singular value decomposition (SVD) method. With a combination of ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and multiple linear regression (MLR) analysis, it is found that the first mode, the sea ice loss-global warming pattern, causes wetness over north and northeastern China and drying over Inner Mongolia. The North Pacific Current (NPC) mode shows that a warmer NPC corresponds to a wetter summer over eastern China and a drier one over the Tibetan Plateau. Both NPC and Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) affect moisture variability in northern China and over the Tibetan Plateau, with the NPC mode more important in the centennial scale, while the PDO mode is more important in the multidecadal scale. National Natural Science Foundation of China [41371096, 41130534] SCI(E) ARTICLE 16 6391-6412 30