Revisiting the Relationship between the North Pacific High and Upwelling Winds along the West Coast of North America in the Present and Future Climate

The wind-driven circulation is an important driver of upwelling in the California Current System, a key factor in maintaining a productive ecosystem. In summer, the North Pacific high (NPH) dominates the atmospheric circula-tion, including the nearshore winds. The impact of the NPH on the surface winds along the North American west coast during summer is examined using the ECMWF Reanalysis v5 (ERA5) and the Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1) large ensemble of simulations. The strength, latitude, and longitude of the sea level pressure (SLP) and subsi-dence at 500 hPa are used to assess the NPH and its variability. While both the surface high pressure cell and subsidence are related to the interannual variability of the surface winds over the North Pacific, the strength of subsidence has a much larger effect on the coastal winds than the variability in SLP. Based on the mean of the 40 CESM simulations, future changes in upwelling also more strongly coincide with changes in subsidence than in SLP. Subsidence and southward upwelling-favorable winds increase off the Canadian coast, with the reverse occurring off the U.S. West Coast, by the end of the twenty-first century. In particular, the intermember correlation between the changes in the nearshore surface winds and the 500-hPa pressure vertical velocity reaches 0.75 and 0.87 in the southern and northern portions of the northeast Pacific, respectively. The effect of the subsidence on upwelling winds in the future is confirmed by the CESM2 large ensemble.

Automated summary

The wind-driven circulation plays a crucial role in maintaining upwelling in the California Current System, and the North Pacific high affects the surface winds along the North American west coast in summer. The strength of subsidence has a larger impact on coastal winds than variability in sea level pressure. Future changes in upwelling are more closely related to changes in subsidence than in sea level pressure.