Long‐term variation of winter precipitation linked to sea‐surface heat fluxes around the Japan/East Sea

We revealed long‐term variation of winter precipitation at the northwest coast of Japan and its link to decadal variation of autumn‐to‐winter sea‐surface fluxes from the Japan/East Sea with observational data of sea‐surface fluxes, sea‐surface temperature ( SST ), and ocean heat content ( OHC ) data. Much precipitation was observed after 1995 because both SST and OHC were significantly higher in the Japan/East Sea. In a numerical experiment forced by the climatological SST that excluded the decadal change, the decadal variation of the land precipitation did not appear, suggesting that the decadal variation of the coastal precipitation is sensitive to SST .