Interhemispheric Influence of the Atlantic Warm Pool on the Southeastern Pacific

Abstract

Abstract The Atlantic warm pool (AWP) is a large body of warm water comprising the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and western tropical North Atlantic. The AWP can vary on seasonal, interannual, and multidecadal time scales. The maximum AWP size is in the boreal late summer and early fall, with the largest extent in the year being about 3 times the smallest one. The AWP alternates with the Amazon basin in South America as the seasonal heating source for circulations of the Hadley and Walker type in the Western Hemisphere. During the boreal summer/fall, a strong Hadley-type circulation is established, with ascending motion over the AWP and subsidence over the southeastern tropical Pacific. This is accompanied by equatorward flow in the lower troposphere over the southeastern tropical Pacific, as dynamically required by the Sverdrup vorticity balance. It is shown by analyses of observational data and NCAR community atmospheric model simulations that an anomalously large (small) AWP during the boreal summer/fall results in a strengthening (weakening) of the Hadley-type circulation with enhanced descent (ascent) over the southeastern tropical Pacific. It is further demonstrated—by using a simple two-level model linearized about a specified background mean state—that the interhemispheric connection between the AWP and the southeastern tropical Pacific depends on the configuration of the background mean zonal winds in the Southern Hemisphere.