Decadal Oscillation of Fall Temperature in Taiwan

Abstract

This study verifies the existence of an evident decadal oscillation in fall (September - November) temperature for Taiwan. It has an island-wide spatial pattern and a central frequency of 11 years. Acorresponding decadal-oscillation mode of tropical sea surface temperature (SST) is found to be largely responsible for inducing the decadal temperature oscillation for Taiwan via the following regulating processes. On a decadal timescale, periods of decadal warming in Taiwan concur with major cold anomalies in tropical SST over the eastern Indian Ocean and the central Pacific. These cold SST anomalies modulate tropical Walker circulation so as to produce anomalous descending centers in their regions. Meanwhile, the complementary anomalous ascending motion and anomalous low-level convergence center occur near the Maritime continent. These anomalous ascending and descending centers act as tropical forcing sources to evoke a low-level Rossby-wave-like circulation anomaly in the Asian-Pacific regions. Taiwan is surrounded by a low-level anomalous high to its east and an anomalous low to its west. These circulations induce anomalous flows from the south to warm Taiwan via anomalous warm advection. The above regulating processes reverse in polarity during periods of decadal cooling in Taiwan.

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Published by The Chinese Geoscience Union