This study analyses the decadal changes in winter precipitation and extreme precipitation in a warming environment in China. The results show that, together with a trend of winter warming in China, winter precipitation and extreme precipitation in the region are also increasing. In addition, concurrent with the decadal warming shift that occurred in the mid-1980s, precipitation and extreme precipitation both increased significantly. Quantitative analysis shows that precipitation and extreme precipitation increased at rates of 9.7% and 22.6% per 1°C of surface warming in China. This rate of precipitation increase is greater than the global mean, which indicates that precipitation in China is highly sensitive to climate warming and further highlights the importance of studying regional responses to climate warming. The fact that extreme precipitation is increasing at a higher rate than precipitation implies that winter precipitation in China will increasingly be of more extreme type in the context of global warming, which could partly explain why there have recently been a number of record-breaking extreme snowfall events in China.winter precipitation, extreme precipitation, global warming, sensitivity, regional response, climate change Citation:Sun

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In this study, the connected spatial and temporal features of winter precipitation over East Asia and November snow cover over Eurasia are analysed using the singular value decomposition (SVD) method. The results show that a strong consistent variation of winter precipitation occurs over East Asia, especially north of 35°N, closely related to the snow cover change over Eastern Europe. Mechanism analysis indicates that the processes behind the physical link between the November snow cover over Eastern Europe and East Asian winter precipitation are different in December compared to January and February. In December, the persistence of the snow cover anomaly can ‘memorize’ the signal of the November snow cover and impact December circulation and precipitation over East Asia. During January–February, the snow cover anomaly disappears, while the variability of the polar vortex resulting from the interaction of the troposphere and stratosphere serves as a bridge connecting the November snow cover over Eastern Europe and the January–February precipitation over East Asia. Revealing the role of the November snow cover is significant not only for understanding East Asian winter precipitation variability but also for its prediction.

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The possible mechanism behind the variability in the dipole pattern of boreal winter precipitation over East Asia is analyzed in this study. The results show that the SST anomalies (SSTAs) over the South Pacific Ocean (SPO) in boreal autumn are closely related to the variability in the dipole pattern of boreal winter precipitation over East Asia. The physical link between the boreal autumn SPO SSTAs and the boreal winter East Asian precipitation dipole pattern is shown to mainly be the seasonal persistence of the SPO SSTAs themselves. The seasonal persistence of the SPO SSTAs can memorize and transport the signal of the boreal autumn SSTAs to the following winter, and then stimulates a meridional teleconnection pattern from the SH to the NH, resulting in a meridional dipole pattern of atmospheric circulation over East Asia in boreal winter. As a major influencing factor, this dipole pattern of the atmospheric circulation can finally lead to the anomalous precipitation dipole pattern over East Asia in boreal winter. These observed physical processes are further confirmed in this study through numerical simulation. The evidence from this study, showing the impact of the SPO SSTAs in boreal autumn, not only deepens our understanding of the variability in East Asian boreal winter precipitation, but also provides a potentially useful predictor for precipitation in the region.