Overview of Climate Prediction for the Summer 2024 in China and Its Precursors
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Abstract:
The main characteristics of climate in the flood season 2024 were accurately predicted by the National Climate Centre, including that the overall climate condition was unfavorable and the flood disasters had more serious impact than drought. The prediction of excessive precipitation in the eastern monsoon region was highly consistent with observations. At the same time, the stage characteristics of flood situation were accurately predicted, that is, the flood situation was serious first in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the Huaihe River Basin and the Taihu Lake Basin before mid-July and then in the Songhua River Basin, the Liaohe River Basin and the Haihe River Basin after mid-July. The prediction of “overall high temperature nationwide in summer, multiple high temperature processes in North China, Huanghuai Region and other places in early summer, and multiple high temperature processes in the south of China in mid-summer” was in line with observations. The shortcoming of the flood season prediction was that the impact of typhoons on extreme precipitation in South China under the background of fewer typhoons was underestimated. The predictions of circulation situation from multiple dynamic climate models for the tropical and subtropical regions were in a relatively good agreement with observations. The models’ predictions of large range of excessive precipitation in eastern China and national temperatures higher than normal were basically consistent with observations as well. In addition, this article analyzes and assesses the precursor signals for the flood season 2024 climate prediction from interdecadal and interannual time scales. The sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the equatorial eastern and central Pacific, tropical Indian Ocean, and tropical Atlantic during the 2023/2024 winter were all remarkable, while the anomalies of the snow cover and polar ice were relatively weak. Therefore, the study focus is on the impact of the SST distribution in the three oceans on the flood season climate of China. Observations also show that the SST anomalies from the three oceans were conducive to strengthening the western Pacific subtropical high, leading to the widespread excessive precipitation in the eastern monsoon region of China.