LINKAGE BETWEEN EURASIAN WINTER SNOW COVER AND REGIONAL CHINESE SUMMER RAINFALL

An inverse relationship has been documented by previous studies between antecedent Eurasian winter snow cover (EWSC) and all-India summer monsoon rainfall. Because both China and India are strongly influenced by the Asian monsoon system, it may be reasonable to ask whether a similar relationship exists between the EWSC and summer rainfall over China, This study seeks an answer to this question. Only a weak interannual relationship is found between the EWSC and summer rainfall over China as a whole. This weak EWSC-rainfall linkage occurs only when the averaged rainfall over the entire country is used. By dividing the country into several geographical regions based on observed features in the interannual variability of rainfall, we find much stronger regional rainfall-EWSC relationships. A strong in-phase EWSC-rainfall relationship is found in southern and northern China, whereas an inverse EWSC-rainfall relationship appears in the western, central, and north-eastern parts of China. Thus, EWSC may be a useful predictor for regional Chinese summer rainfall, but not for rainfall over the country as a whole.