Science Source

Association of Taiwan’s Rainfall Patterns with Large-Scale Oceanic and Atmospheric Phenomena

Presents a 50-year (1960–2009) monthly rainfall gridded dataset produced by the Taiwan Climate Change Projection and Information Platform Project
The gridded data (5 × 5 km) displayed influence of topography on spatial variability of rainfall
The results of the empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) analysis revealed the patterns associated with the large-scale sea surface temperature variability over Pacific
The first mode (65%) revealed the annual peaks of large rainfall in the southwestern mountainous area, which is associated with southwest monsoons and typhoons during summertime
The second temporal EOF mode (16%) revealed the rainfall variance associated with the monsoon and its interaction with the slopes of the mountain range
States that this pattern is the major contributor to spatial variance of rainfall in Taiwan, as indicated by the first mode (40%) of spatial variance EOF analysis
The second temporal EOF mode correlated with the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
Finds in particular, that during the autumn of the La Niña years following the strong El Niño years, the time-varying amplitude was substantially greater than that of normal years
The third temporal EOF mode (7%) revealed a north-south out-of-phase rainfall pattern, the slowly evolving variations of which were in phase with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
States that because of Taiwan’s geographic location and the effect of local terrestrial structures, climate variability related to ENSO differed markedly from other regions in East Asia