Multi‐Year Potential Predictability of the Wintertime Heavy Precipitation Potentials in East Asia

Abstract

Abstract We validate the multiyear potential predictability of wintertime heavy precipitation potential in East Asia by combining initialized decadal hindcasts of the global climate model and large ensemble simulations from a high‐resolution global atmospheric model. By analyzing a set of initialized hindcasts, the major predictive components of sea surface temperature (SST) variability beyond interannual timescales are identified as high‐latitudes multidecadal variability and the so‐called trans‐basin variability (TBV). A set of 100 ensemble simulations using a high‐resolution atmospheric model showed a significantly large signal‐to‐noise ratio for the wintertime heavy precipitation potential in East Asia, which is closely related to the TBV. When the SST around the maritime continent is higher, the anomalously low pressure in the northwestern Pacific enhances low‐level cold air transport due to the winter monsoon. Consequently, the resultant weaker baroclinicity in the lower atmosphere reduces storm activity and wintertime heavy precipitation potential in East Asia.

Keywords

• decadal prediction
• trans‐basin variability
• heavy precipitation
• climate extreme
• large ensemble simulation