Vertical Structure and Energetics of the Western Pacific Teleconnection Pattern

Abstract

AbstractThe western Pacific (WP) pattern, characterized by north–south dipolar anomalies in pressure over the Far East and western North Pacific, is known as one of the dominant teleconnection patterns in the wintertime Northern Hemisphere. Composite analysis reveals that monthly height anomalies exhibit baroclinic structure with their phase lines tilting southwestward with height in the lower troposphere. The anomalies can thus yield not only a poleward heat flux across the climatological thermal gradient across the strong Pacific jet but also a westward heat flux across the climatological thermal gradient between the North Pacific and the cooler Asian continent. The resultant baroclinic conversion of available potential energy (APE) from the climatological-mean flow contributes most efficiently to the APE maintenance of the monthly WP pattern, acting against strong thermal damping effects by anomalous heat exchanges with the underlying ocean and anomalous precipitation in the subtropics and by the effect of anomalous eddy heat flux under modulated storm-track activity. Kinetic energy (KE) of the pattern is maintained through barotropic feedback forcing associated with modulated activity of transient eddies and the conversion from the climatological-mean westerlies, both of which act against frictional damping. The net feedback forcing by transient eddies is therefore not particularly efficient. The present study suggests that the WP pattern has a characteristic of a dynamical mode that can maintain itself through efficient energy conversion from the climatological-mean fields even without external forcing, including remote influence from the tropics.