Climate extremes in Malaysia and the equatorial South China Sea

The southern extent of the South China Sea (SCS) is an important natural resource epicenter for Malaysia which experiences climate extremes. This paper documents the variability of extremes in the equatorial SCS through selected ground-based observations of precipitation in Malaysia and ship-based observations of wind data in the Maritime Continent region, to elucidate the interrelationship between precipitation variability over Malaysia and wind variability over the ocean. The data have been carefully inspected and analyzed, and related to the real-time multivariate Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO) time series. The analysis suggests that the northeast or boreal winter monsoon dominates extreme rainfall in eastern Malaysian cities. Further, the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo Malaysia are affected by the MJO differently than the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. From the wind analysis we found that average zonal wind is westerly from May to September and easterly from November to April. When the active (convective) phase of the MJO is centered over the Maritime Continent, the strong westerly wind bursts are more frequent in the South China Sea. While more investigation is needed, these results suggest that the status of the Madden–Julian Oscillation can be used to help forecast climate extremes in areas of Malaysia.

Research Highlights
► We document the variability of extremes in the equatorial South China Sea.
► Boreal winter monsoon dominates extreme rainfall in eastern Malaysian cities.
► The position of the MJO can be used for probability forecasts of extreme rainfall in the areas of Malaysia.
► Westerly wind bursts have been quantified for the equatorial South China Sea.