Fig. 1

Climatological mean (left) and interannual (right) patterns of SST and precipitation during JJA (1984–2005) in observations and simulations. a Climatological mean precipitation in observations; b SST (shading) and precipitation (dots) regressed against the standardized EASM index in observations; c Ensemble mean biases of climatological mean precipitation (dots) in the atmosphere-only models; d Ensemble mean biases of SST (shading) and precipitation (dots) regressed against the standardized EASM index in the atmosphere-only models; e Climatological mean SST (shading) and precipitation (dots) for the coupled model ensemble mean minus the atmosphere-only model ensemble mean (i.e., coupling effect); f same as d but for the coupled model ensemble mean minus the atmosphere-only model ensemble mean. In a, the boxes denote the regions of NWP (white solid), Meiyu front (white dashed), the Indian Ocean (red solid), the western Pacific (red dashed), and the southern tropical Indian Ocean (gold solid).