Covariability of western tropical Pacific-North Pacific atmospheric circulation during summer

Abstract

North Pacific subtropical high (NPSH) is permanent high-pressure system over the Northern Pacific Ocean and it extends to the western North Pacific during the boreal summer (June-July-August), which is so called the western North Pacific subtropical high (WNPSH). Here, we examine the covariability of the NPSH-WNPSH during summer using both observation and Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) model data. The statistical analyses indicate that the NPSH-WNPSH covariability shows significant decadal variability in the observations, in addition, the in-phase relationship of NPSH-WNPSH is enhanced after the mid-to-late 1990s. A dipole-like sea surface temperature (SST) pattern, i.e., a warming in the western Pacific and a cooling in the eastern Pacific, is dominant after the mid-to-late 1990s, which acts to enhance the covariability of NPSH-WNPSH by modulating the atmospheric teleconnections. However, the covariability of NPSH-WNPSH in the future climate is not much influenced by the anthropogenic forcing but it is largely characterized by the natural decadal-to-interdecadal variability, implying that the enhancement of NPSH-WNPSH covariability after the mid-to-late 1990s could be considered as part of decadal-to-interdecadal variability.