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Nonstationary modulation of the preceding spring North Pacific Victoria mode on the connection of central North America winter temperature with ENSO

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Abstract

Previous studies have reported significant uncertainty in the relationship between El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the winter surface air temperature (SAT) over central North America (NA). This paper uses reanalysis data and statistical methods to investigate the possible modulation effect of the Victoria mode (VM) during the preceding spring on the winter ENSO–SAT relationship. The correlation between ENSO and the winter SAT over central NA was found to be significantly positive during the positive VM phase. However, this significant correlation is almost absent during the negative VM phase. Further analysis revealed that the zonal location of the sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) over the tropical Pacific is an essential aspect of this VM modulation. During the positive VM phase, the dominant positive SSTA in the central-eastern tropical Pacific contribute to the formation of the negative phase of the North Pacific Oscillation (NPO)-like teleconnection, which further enhances the anomalous southerly winds and SAT over central NA. In contrast, during the negative VM phase, the Aleutian low-like atmospheric response induced by the central tropical Pacific SSTA is limited to the central North Pacific, which has a limited effect on the variation of the central NA SAT. The VM modulation mechanism is shown to be well reproduced by historical simulations of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6. Our results suggest that, despite the uncertainty associated with the ENSO–SAT connection, ENSO may provide prediction skills for the winter SAT over central NA during the positive VM phase.

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Data availability

The monthly mean SAT data were obtained from the NCEP–NCAR Global Reanalysis 1 (NCEP-1; https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.html) and the ECMWF Reanalysis version 5 (ERA5; https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/reanalysis-datasets/era5) datasets. The monthly mean atmospheric variables were obtained from NCEP-1 (https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.html). Precipitation data used in this study were obtained from NOAA’s Precipitation Reconstruction (PREC) dataset (https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.prec.html). The Hadley Centre Global Sea Ice and Sea Surface Temperature dataset is available from https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisst/data/download.html. The output from the CMIP6 model historical simulations is available at https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip6/.

Code availability

(Software application or custom code) The software application applied in the paper is the NCAR Command Language.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41975070, 41790474, and 42205020) and Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. LQ23D050003. The authors thank Prof. Zhongshi Zhang for his constructive comments that helped to improve the paper.

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41975070, 41790474, and 42205020) and Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. LQ23D050003.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Environmental Change and Natural Disasters of Chinese Ministry of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Kai Ji & Ruiqiang Ding

  2. Department of Atmospheric Science, School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China

    Kai Ji

  3. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Ruiqiang Ding

  4. State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China

    Jiayu Zheng

  5. Zhejiang Institute of Meteorological Sciences (Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Zhejiang Branch), Hangzhou, China

    Qifeng Qian

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KJ and RD designed the study. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by KJ. The first draft of the manuscript was written by KJ and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ruiqiang Ding.

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Ji, K., Ding, R., Zheng, J. et al. Nonstationary modulation of the preceding spring North Pacific Victoria mode on the connection of central North America winter temperature with ENSO. Clim Dyn 62, 37–53 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-06895-4

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