Long-Term Trend and Decadal Variability of Persistence of Daily 500-mb Geopotential Height Anomalies during Boreal Winter

Abstract

Abstract An analysis has been made of the trend and decadal variability of persistence of daily 500-mb (hPa) geopotential height anomalies for the winter season. The persistence is measured based on autocorrelations at 1- and 5-day lags (denoted r1 and r5, respectively) and the effective time between independent samples T0. The results from linear trend analysis show that there exist significant trends of persistence of daily 500-mb geopotential height anomalies in some regions of the world. The regions with a significant decreasing trend are found to be mainly located at mid–high latitudes of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, while the regions with a significant increasing trend are mainly located in the tropical Pacific Ocean. For other variables including sea level pressure (SLP), 1000-mb height, and 200-mb height, the persistence of daily anomalies also exhibits similar trends in these regions. It is speculated that the enhanced baroclinicity and advection are possibly responsible for the significant downward trend of persistence mainly occurring in the southern and northern mid–high latitudes, while the increased coupling between the atmospheric circulation and sea surface temperature (SST) could contribute to the increase of persistence in the tropical Pacific. An empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis based on the 7-yr Gaussian low-pass-filtered series of winter season r1 and r5 of 500-mb height (linear trend removed before the low-pass filtering) is presented. The results suggest that there is prominent decadal variability of persistence in some regions of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and tropics. When compared with r1, r5 has decadal variations with larger magnitude and larger spatial scale. It is found that the decadal variability of persistence is closely related to decadal fluctuations of large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns.