Impact of the Indian Ocean SST basin mode on the Asian summer monsoon

Abstract

Following an El Niño event, a basin‐wide warming takes place over the tropical Indian Ocean, peaks in late boreal winter and early spring, and persists through boreal summer. Our observational analysis suggests that this Indian Ocean warming induces robust climatic anomalies in the summer Indo‐West Pacific region, prolonging the El Niño's influence after tropical East Pacific sea surface temperature has returned to normal. In response to the Indian Ocean warming, precipitation increases over most of the basin, forcing a Matsuno‐Gill pattern in the upper troposphere with a strengthened South Asian high. Near the ground, the southwest monsoon intensifies over the Arabian Sea and weakens over the South China and Philippine Seas. An anomalous anticyclonic circulation forms over the subtropical Northwest Pacific, collocated with negative precipitation anomalies. All these anomaly patterns are reproduced in a coupled model simulation initialized with a warming in the tropical Indian Ocean mixed layer, indicating that the Indian Ocean warming is not just a passive response to El Niño but important for summer climate variability in the Indo‐West Pacific region. The implications for seasonal prediction are discussed.