Complex networks reveal teleconnections between the global SST and rainfall in southwest China

Panjie Qiao, Wenqi Liu, Yongwen Zhang, Zhiqiang Gong

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Droughts and floods have frequently occurred in Southwest China (SWC) during the past several decades. Yet, the understanding of the mechanism of precipitation in SWC is still a challenge, since the East Asian monsoon and Indian monsoon potentially influence the rainfall in this region. Thus, the prediction of precipitation in SWC has become a difficult and critical topic in climatology. We develop a novel multi-variable network-based method to delineate the relations between the global sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) and the precipitation anomalies (PA) in SWC. Our results show that the out-degree patterns in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Ocean significantly influence the PA in SWC. In particular, we find that such patterns dominated by extreme precipitation change with the seasons. Furthermore, we uncover that the teleconnections between the global SSTA and rainfall can be described by the in-degree patterns, which dominated by several vital nodes within SWC. Based on the characteristics of these nodes, we find that the key SSTA areas affect the pattern of the nodes in SWC with some specific time delays that could be helpful to improve the long-term prediction of precipitation in SWC.

Original languageEnglish
Article number101
JournalAtmosphere
Volume12
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Li-censee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Funding

This research was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFC1507702) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China Project (Grant Nos. 61573173, 42075057 and 41875100). We are grateful for the data resources provided by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. And thanks to Fan Jingfang for helping to revise the paper. Funding: This research was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFC1507702) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China Project (Grant Nos. 61573173, 42075057 and 41875100).

FundersFunder number
European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
National Natural Science Foundation of China41875100, 61573173, 42075057
National Key Research and Development Program of China2018YFC1507702

    Keywords

    • Complex network
    • Rainfall
    • SSTA
    • SWC
    • Teleconnection
    • Time delays

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Complex networks reveal teleconnections between the global SST and rainfall in southwest China'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this