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An inter-basin teleconnection from the North Atlantic to the subarctic North Pacific at multidecadal time scales

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Abstract

Observational evidence suggests that the sub-arctic North Pacific (SANP; 45°–60° N, 155° E–165° W) sea surface temperature (SST) shows pronounced multidecadal variability, which cannot be explained by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Here, we find that the SANP SST multidecadal variability is closely linked to the remote Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), indicating a multidecadal inter-basin teleconnection. The teleconnection can be well reproduced in a set of Atlantic Pacemaker experiments. An atmospheric bridge mechanism for the teleconnection is proposed by analyzing both observations and simulation data. The AMO warm phase generates anomalous ascent and upper-level divergence over the North Atlantic. The upper-level outflows converge towards the subarctic North Pacific, leading to compensating subsidence along with anomalous high pressure there. The enhanced adiabatic descent causes anomalous warming and moistening of the lower troposphere above the SANP basin and increases the downwelling longwave radiation. The warming of the SANP SST is further induced and amplified due to water vapor-longwave radiation-SST positive feedback. The anomalous high also weakens the climatological cyclonic flow of Aleutian low and suppresses the turbulent heat release from ocean to atmosphere, contributing to the SANP SST warming. Our findings suggest that the AMO plays a crucial role in the subarctic North Pacific SST multidecadal variability.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that significantly improved the quality of this paper. This work was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41775038, 41975082, and 41790474), the National Program on Global Change and Air–Sea Interaction (GASI‐IPOVAI‐03 and GASI‐IPOVAI‐06) and the National Key Research and Development Plan (2016YFA0601801). C.S. is supported by the State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Project LTO1801).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Global Change and Earth System Science (GCESS), Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Zhanqiu Gong, Cheng Sun, Juan Feng, Fei Xie & Yun Yang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Satellite Ocean Environment Dynamics, Second Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Hangzhou, China

    Cheng Sun

  3. Key Laboratory of Physical Oceanography-Institute for Advanced Ocean Studies, Ocean University of China and Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266100, China

    Jianping Li

  4. State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Ruiqiang Ding

  5. Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster of Ministry of Education/ Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters/ Institute for Climate and Application Research (ICAR), Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Jiaqing Xue

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  1. Zhanqiu Gong
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Gong, Z., Sun, C., Li, J. et al. An inter-basin teleconnection from the North Atlantic to the subarctic North Pacific at multidecadal time scales. Clim Dyn 54, 807–822 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-019-05031-5

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