Response of Extreme Precipitation to Solar Activity and El Nino Events in Typical Regions of the Loess Plateau

Abstract

Extreme climatic oscillation has been the subject of global attention. The purpose of this study is to explore the response of extreme precipitation to solar activity and El Nino events in typical regions of the Loess Plateau—a case study in the Yan’an area. The precipitation data was from nine weather stations in Yan’an and the sunspot number and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) were from 1951 to 2015. The results show that maximum precipitation occurred mainly at the peak sunspot number or 2a near it and the sunspot number minimum and valley values were not significantly correlated. The results of Morlet wavelet showed that a 41-year period of precipitation was the most obvious within the 64-year scale. Similarly, sunspot number showed a 16-year periodic variability. Correlation analyses of the 16-year and 41-year scales demonstrated that the relationships between precipitation and sunspot number were close. In addition, extreme precipitation often occurred in the year following El Nino events. According to 10-year moving average curves, precipitation generally showed a downward trend when SOI was negative. The results indicate that solar activity and El Nino events had significant impacts on precipitation in typical regions of the Loess Plateau.