Removing the Effects of Tropical Dynamics from North Pacific Climate Variability

Teleconnections from the tropics energize variations of the North Pacific climate, but detailed diagnosis of this relationship has proven difficult. Simple univariate methods, such as regression on El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) indices, may be inadequate since the key dynamical processes involved-including ENSO diversity in the tropics, re-emergence of mixed layer thermal anomalies, and oceanic Rossby wave propagation in the North Pacific-have a variety of overlapping spatial and temporal scales. Here we use a multivariate linear inverse model to quantify tropical and extratropical multiscale dynamical contributions to North Pacific variability, in both observations and CMIP6 models. In observations, we find that the tropics are responsible for almost half of the seasonal variance, and almost three-quarters of the decadal variance, along the North American coast and within the Subtropical Front region northwest of Hawaii. SST anomalies that are generated by local dynamics within the northeast Pacific have much shorter time scales, consistent with transient weather forcing by Aleutian low anomalies. Variability within the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension (KOE) region is considerably less impacted by the tropics, on all time scales. Consequently, without tropical forcing the dominant pattern of North Pacific variability would be a KOE pattern, rather than the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO). In contrast to observations, most CMIP6 historical simulations produce North Pacific variability that maximizes in the KOE region, with amplitude significantly higher than observed. Correspondingly, the simulated North Pacific in all CMIP6 models is shown to be relatively insensitive to the tropics, with a dominant spatial pattern generally resembling the KOE pattern, not the PDO.

Automated summary

The study shows that tropical regions contribute significantly to North Pacific climate variability, especially along the North American coast and within the Subtropical Front region northwest of Hawaii. Conversely, variability within the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension region is less impacted by tropical regions. CMIP6 models tend to exhibit North Pacific variability that aligns more with the KOE pattern rather than the PDO pattern seen in observations.