Pacific Decadal Variability: The Tropical Pacific Mode and the North Pacific Mode*

Abstract

Pacific decadal variability is studied in a series of coupled global ocean–atmosphere simulations aided by two “modeling surgery” strategies: partial coupling (PC) and partial blocking (PB). The PC experiments retain full ocean–atmosphere coupling in selected regions, but constrain ocean–atmosphere coupling elsewhere by prescribing the model climatological SST to force the atmospheric component of the coupled system. In PB experiments, sponge walls are inserted into the ocean component of the coupled model at specified latitudinal bands to block the extratropical–tropical oceanic teleconnection. Both modeling and observational studies suggest that Pacific decadal variability is composed of two distinct modes: a decadal to bidecadal tropical Pacific mode (TPM) and a multidecadal North Pacific mode (NPM). The PC and PB experiments showed that the tropical Pacific mode originates predominantly from local coupled ocean–atmosphere interaction within the tropical Pacific. Extratropical–tropical teleconnections, although not a necessary precondition for the genesis of the tropical decadal variability, can enhance SST variations in the Tropics. The decadal memory in the Tropics seems to be associated with tropical higher baroclinic modes. The North Pacific mode originates from local atmospheric stochastic processes and coupled ocean–atmosphere interaction. Atmospheric stochastic forcing can generate a weaker NPM-like pattern in both the atmosphere and ocean, but with no preferred timescales. In contrast, coupled ocean–atmosphere feedback can enhance the variability substantially and generate a basin-scale multidecadal mode in the North Pacific. The multidecadal memory in the midlatitudes seems to be associated with the delayed response of the subtropical/subpolar gyre to wind stress variation in the central North Pacific and the slow growing/decaying of SST anomalies that propagate eastward in the Kuroshio Extension region. Oceanic dynamics, particularly the advection of the mean temperature by anomalous meridional surface Ekman flow and western boundary currents, plays an important role in generating the North Pacific mode.