Seasonal persistence of soil moisture anomalies related to freeze–thaw over the Tibetan Plateau and prediction signal of summer precipitation in eastern China

Soil moisture can be an effective climate prediction signal due to its long memory. This study investigated seasonal persistence of soil moisture anomalies from the preceding autumn to spring dominated by the soil freeze–thaw (FT) process over the Tibetan Plateau (TP), and their relationship with summer precipitation in eastern China. Results demonstrated that soil moisture anomalies from the preceding autumn can persist until spring by water storage effect of the soil FT process. Soil moisture in the TP during the preceding autumn and winter had similar climatic effects as spring soil moisture. Positive soil moisture anomalies in the eastern TP during the spring led to less summer precipitation in south China and the Yellow River basin, and more summer precipitation in the Yangtze River basin and northeast China. A possible mechanism for this was that wetter soil moisture anomalies from the preceding autumn were stored in the soil by soil freezing, and were released with soil thawing in the spring, inducing surface diabatic heating anomalies over the TP. These anomalies then persisted into summer and enhanced the TP’s thermal forcing to the subtropical westerlies and affected stationary Rossby wave train propagation in middle latitudes, particularly on the northwest and northeast sides of the TP. This study suggests that most of spring soil moisture anomalies signal contains the preceding two seasons’ soil moisture anomalies information; therefore, summer precipitation predicting signals can be obtained from soil moisture anomalies from the preceding autumn, which could lengthen the seasonal climate prediction period.