It has long been recognized that fluctuations in
SST and the
strength of the
NAO are related. The leading pattern of
SST variability
during boreal winter (not shown) consists of a tri-polar structure
marked, in one phase, by a cold anomaly in the subpolar North
Atlantic, a warm anomaly in the middle latitudes centered off
Cape
Hatteras, and a cold subtropical anomaly between the equator and
30°N. This structure suggests the
SST anomalies are driven by changes
in the air–sea heat exchanges and surface wind induced Ekman
currents associated with
NAO variations (Marshall et al., 2001a;
Visbeck et al., 2003). The relationship is indeed strongest when the
NAO index leads an index of the
SST variability by several weeks,
which highlights the well-known result that large-scale
SST over the
extratropical oceans responds to atmospheric forcing on monthly and
seasonal time scales (e.g., Cayan, 1992a,b; Battisti et al., 1995;
Delworth, 1996; Deser and Timlin, 1997). Compositing North Atlantic
SST on high and low
NAO index winters clearly illustrates the
aforementioned tri-pole pattern of
SST change (Fig. 14).
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