A Comparison of Polar Vortex Response to Pacific and Indian Ocean Warming

During recent decades, the tropical Judo-Pacific Ocean has become increasingly warmer. Meanwhile, both the northern and southern hemispheric polar vortices (NPV and SPV) have exhibited a deepening trend in boreal winter. Although previous studies have revealed that the tropical Indian Ocean warming (IOW) favors an intensifying NPV and a weakening SPV, how the tropical Pacific Ocean warming (POW) influences the NPV and SPV remains unclear. In this study, a comparative analysis has been conducted through ensemble atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) experiments. The results show that, for the Northern Hemisphere, the two warmings exerted opposite impacts in boreal winter, in that the IOW intensified the NPV while the POW weakened the NPV. For the Southern Hemisphere, both the IOW and POW warmed the southern polar atmosphere and weakened the SPV. A diagnostic analysis based on the vorticity budget revealed that such an interhemispheric difference in influences from the IOW and POW in boreal winter was associated with different roles of transient eddy momentum flux convergence between the hemispheres. Furthermore, this difference may have been linked to different strengths of stationary wave activity between the hemispheres in boreal winter.