ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-12-669-2012 Teleconnection between Australian winter temperature and Indian summer monsoon rainfall Lee S.-Y. 1 Koh T. Y. 1 2 School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Earth Observatory of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 16 01 2012 12 2 669 681 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/12/669/2012/acp-12-669-2012.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/12/669/2012/acp-12-669-2012.pdf

The pattern of evaporative sources and the direction of the large-scale circulation over the Indian Ocean during the boreal summer raises the question of whether atmospheric conditions in Australia could influence conditions over the Indian subcontinent, despite the long passage of air over the Indian Ocean. The authors propose that such an influence is sometimes possible when there is unusually low temperature over inland Australia during the austral winter, through the mechanism where such a temperature extreme enhances evaporation rate over the eastern tropical Indian Ocean and hence enhances rainfall over two regions in western India after 13–19 days. Results from trajectory calculations indicate that such an influence is mechanistically feasible, with air of Australian origin contributing 0.5–1.5% of the climatological net precipitation for monsoon seasonal rainfall over western India. Statistics performed on reanalysis, satellite and in situ data are consistent with such a mechanism. Since extreme winter temperature in Australia is often associated with cold-air outbreaks, the described mechanism may be an example of how southern hemispheric mid-latitude weather can influence northern hemispheric monsoon rainfall. Further study is recommended through modelling and comparison with various known causes of atmospheric variability to confirm the existence of such a mechanism and determine the extent of its influence during specific low temperature episodes.

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