• Atmosphere
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.465-472
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• 2012

Using various observed data, we examined the evolution of tropical Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) during 2011-2012, with focusing on the development of 2012 El Ni$\tilde{n}$o. It is observed that a La Ni$\tilde{n}$a event during 2011 was followed by a moderate El Ni$\tilde{n}$o during 2012 summer. The 2012 summer El Ni$\tilde{n}$o initiated near the west coast of South America on February 2012, and continued to expand westward till August. Given this evolutionary pattern, the 2012 summer El Ni$\tilde{n}$o can be categorized as 'Eastern Pacific (EP) El Ni$\tilde{n}$o' because Ni$\tilde{n}$o-3 index is greater than Ni$\tilde{n}$o-4 index, and it may be the first well-defined EP El Ni$\tilde{n}$o since 2001. On February 2012, this event was initiated mainly by the local air-sea interaction, and at the same time the ocean heat content was accumulated over the tropical western Pacific due to the easterly wind anomaly over the tropical western Pacific. Then, the accumulated heat content slowly propagates to the tropical eastern Pacific, which attributes to maintain El Ni$\tilde{n}$o state during 2012 summer. After August, the positive SST anomaly over the equatorial eastern Pacific decays possibly due to the exhausted heat content and the weakening of air-sea interaction, but the weak positive SST anomaly over the central Pacific remains till now (2012 November).

• Atmosphere
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.325-336
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• 2018

This study investigates robust features of interdecadal changes in the Northern hemisphere summer tropical-extratropical teleconnection occurred around the mid-to-late 1990s by analyzing four different reanalysis data for atmospheric circulation and temperature, two precipitation reconstructions, and two sea surface temperature (SST) data during the satellite observation era of 1980~2017. For the last 38 years, there has been a significant increasing trend in anticyclonic circulation at lower and upper troposphere and 2 m air temperature with wavenumber-5 Rossby wave structure in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) extratropics. The increase has been accompanied with the significant weakening and northward shift of jet stream over Eurasia and the North Pacific. It is further found that there has been a significant interdecadal shift occurred around the mid-to-late 1990s in the two distinct modes of tropical-extratropical teleconnection: Western Pacific-North America (WPNA) and circumglobal teleconnection (CGT) pattern. After mid-to-late 1990s, the WPNA has played more important role in modulating the extratropical atmospheric circulation and surface climate, which has been preferentially occurred during the El $Ni{\tilde{n}}o$-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) decaying or transition summer such as 1998, 2010 and 2016. During these summers, severe heat waves were occurred over many parts of the NH extratropics due to the combined effect of the increasing trend in the barotropic anticyclonic circulation and the significant WPNA across the NH. Although weakened, the CGT also contributed to some of hot summers over many parts of the NH extratropics such as 1999, 2000, 2008, 2011, and 2012 when weak to moderate La $Ni{\tilde{n}}o$ was persisted.