Cross-scale causal information flow from El Niño Southern Oscillation to precipitation in eastern China

The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a dominant mode of climate variability influencing temperature and precipitation in distant parts of the world. Traditionally, the ENSO influence is assessed considering its amplitude. Focusing on its quasioscillatory dynamics comprising multiple time scales, we analyze causal influence of phases of ENSO oscillatory components on scales of precipitation variability in eastern China, using information-theoretic generalization of Granger causality. We uncover the causal influence of the ENSO quasibiennial component on the precipitation variability on and around the annual scale, while the amplitude of the precipitation quasibiennial component is influenced by the low-frequency ENSO components with the periods around 6 years. This cross-scale causal information flow is important mainly in the Yellow River basin, while in the Yangtze River basin the causal effect of the ENSO amplitude is dominant. The presented results suggest that in different regions different aspects of ENSO dynamics should be employed for prediction of precipitation.