The spring relationship between the Pacific-North American pattern and the North Atlantic Oscillation

Abstract

The Pacific-North American pattern (PNA) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) are two dominant modes of low-frequency variability in the Northern Hemisphere winter. Generally these two patterns are separable and uncorrelated in both space and time. However, dating back to the 1970s there have been studies which have linked the Aleutian and Icelandic low intensities, and shown that a significant temporal correlation does, on occasion, occur. Each of these semi-permanent low pressure systems is a part of the PNA and NAO patterns, respectively, and therefore, given a link between the two semi-permanent low pressure systems, we explore whether a link between the PNA and NAO also appears. Recently studies have found such a link during the winters of certain decades. The present study, documents an observed relationship between the PNA and NAO which is consistently present during the spring and early summer. This relationship is shown to be due to the fact that the PNA and NAO are spatially overlapping projections of the same pattern of variability, given by the first EOF of 500 hPa geopotential height. Both the PNA and NAO patterns correlate more strongly to the first EOF’s spatial pattern, resembling the Aleutian low-Icelandic low seesaw pattern, than the rotated EOF (REOF) loading patterns used to compute their respective indices. Furthermore, when the two patterns are correlated, the effect of El-Nino on the Northern Hemisphere is separate from the pattern associated with the PNA. Finally, we examine a 21-year period in the winter for which the PNA and NAO are significantly correlated, and find that the conclusions drawn from the spring hold true. The results presented herein demonstrate that defining the PNA and NAO based upon typical loading patterns may not be the ideal approach; especially given that the patterns are spatially similar and covary in time.