Relationships between summer rainfall over China and ocean temperatures in the tropical western Pacific

Abstract

Aspects of the associations between summer (June-August) rainfall over China and ocean temperatures in the 'warm pool' region in the tropical western Pacific have been examined. This has been achieved with precipitation records for 160 stations and sea surface temperature data from the COADS covering the 40-year period 1951-90. The spatial distribution of the rainfall-SST correlations were found to vary considerably according to location of the SST target area. There were significant positive associations between the interannual variation of summer rainfall in the lower part of the Yangtze River valley and SST in the 10-20°N, 120-130°E Marsden square. To the north, over the Huaihe River vall..