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Persistent anomalies of the extratropical Northern Hemisphere wintertime circulation as an initiator of El Niño/Southern Oscillation events

Journal Article · · Scientific Reports
 [1];  [2];  [3]
  1. Boston Univ., MA (United States). Dept. of Earth and Environment; None
  2. Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering and Earth Science
  3. Stockholm Univ. (Sweden). Dept. of Meteorology and Bolin Center for Climate Research
+ Show Author Affiliations
Climates across both hemispheres are strongly influenced by tropical Pacific variability associated with the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Conversely, extratropical variability also can affect the tropics. In particular, seasonal-mean alterations of near-surface winds associated with the North Pacific Oscillation (NPO) serve as a significant extratropical forcing agent of ENSO. However, it is still unclear what dynamical processes give rise to year-to-year shifts in these long-lived NPO anomalies. Here in this paper we show that intraseasonal variability in boreal winter pressure patterns over the Central North Pacific (CNP) imparts a significant signature upon the seasonal-mean circulations characteristic of the NPO. Further we show that the seasonal-mean signature results in part from year-to-year variations in persistent, quasi-stationary low-pressure intrusions into the subtropics of the CNP, accompanied by the establishment of persistent, quasi-stationary high-pressure anomalies over high latitudes of the CNP. Overall, we find that the frequency of these persistent extratropical anomalies (PEAs) during a given winter serves as a key modulator of intraseasonal variability in extratropical North Pacific circulations and, through their influence on the seasonal-mean circulations in and around the southern lobe of the NPO, the state of the equatorial Pacific 9–12 months later.
Research Organization:
Boston Univ., MA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Science Foundation (NSF); Swedish Research Council (SRC); USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0004975
OSTI ID:
1430238
Journal Information:
Scientific Reports, Journal Name: Scientific Reports Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 7; ISSN 2045-2322
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (4)

Predicting clustered weather patterns: A test case for applications of convolutional neural networks to spatio-temporal climate data journal January 2020
Evaluating Indices of Blocking Anticyclones in Terms of Their Linear Relations With Surface Hot Extremes journal May 2019
Size of the Atmospheric Blocking Events: Scaling Law and Response to Climate Change journal November 2019
Reduced-order modeling of fully turbulent buoyancy-driven flows using the Green's function method journal January 2019

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