Abstract
Observations indicate that recent tropical Pacific decadal climate variability tends to be associated with the extratropical North Pacific through a relay teleconnection of a fast coupled ocean-atmosphere bridge and a slow oceanic tunnel. A coupled ocean-atmosphere model, forced by the observed decadal wind in the extratropical North Pacific, explicitly demonstrates that extratropical decadal sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies may propagate to the tropics through a coupled wind-evaporative-SST (WES) feedback. The WES feedback cannot only lead to a nearly synchronous change of tropical SST, but also force a delayed adjustment of the meridional overturning circulation in the upper ocean to further sustain the tropical SST change. The study further suggests that the extratropical–tropical teleconnection provides a positive feedback to sustain the decadal changes in both the tropical and extratropical North Pacific.
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Acknowledgment
This work is supported by “ZhuFeng Project” of Ocean University of China with funding provided by China Ministry of Education and National Science Foundation Grant 40576009 (LW) as well as US DOE and NOAA (ZL). Comments from the chief editor Dr. Edwin Schneider greatly improve the paper. A thorough discussion with Dr. Daniel Vimont was helpful in clarifying the atmospheric teleconnection. Comments from two reviewers were helpful in improving the paper. Computational time allocated by Data and Simulation Center of Ocean University of China and NCAR SCD is appreciated.
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Wu, L., Liu, Z., Li, C. et al. Extratropical control of recent tropical Pacific decadal climate variability: a relay teleconnection. Clim Dyn 28, 99–112 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-006-0198-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-006-0198-5