Atmospheric bridge, oceanic tunnel, and global climatic teleconnections

Abstract

We review teleconnections within the atmosphere and ocean, their dynamics and their role in coupled climate variability. We concentrate on teleconnections in the latitudinal direction, notably tropical-extratropical and interhemispheric interactions, and discuss the timescales of several teleconnection processes. The tropical impact on extratropical climate is accomplished mainly through the atmosphere. In particular, tropical Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies impact extratropical climate variability through stationary atmospheric waves and their interactions with midlatitude storm tracks. Changes in the extratropics can also impact the tropical climate through upper ocean subtropical cells at decadal and longer timescales. On the global scale the tropics and subtropics interact through the atmospheric Hadley circulation and the oceanic subtropical cell. The thermohaline circulation can provide an effective oceanic teleconnection for interhemispheric climate interactions. Copyright 2007 by the American Geophysical Union.