Azores High and Hawaiian High: correlations, trends and shifts (1948–2018)

Abstract

The paper focuses on investigation of ‘twin’ subtropical oceanic highs of the Northern Hemisphere, i.e. the Azores High (AH) and the Hawaiian High (HH) in January and July based on gridded 2.5° × 2.5° data of Reanalysis Project of the National Center for Atmospheric Research for the period 1948–2018. The aim is to answer three questions: (1) Are there any connections between AH and HH (both within and between the systems)? (2) What is the long-term variability and trends of the basic characteristics of AH and HH? (3) Do the AH and HH move, and if so, in what directions? The most important results are as follows: (1) the long-term trend of sea level air pressure in the AH centre in January is positive, statistically significant with the increase of 0.63 hPa/10 years, (2) pressure in both centres significantly relates with the latitude of each system; variables characterising the HH in January explain 11% of variation of the variables of the AH in July, (3) the NE-SW/SW-NE index proves the shifting of the AH in January from the south-west to the north-east until the 1990s of the twentieth century and again to the south-west in the twenty-first century, (4) the HH in January and July moved generally from the north-east to the south-west until the end of the twentieth century and shifted again to north-east during the twenty-first century, (5) the AH in July was characterised by complicated displacement system with the prevalence of the shifting from the north-east to the south-west with the exception for the period 1980–1990. In winter, the AH moves towards the land area of Europe in the second half of the twentieth century, while the HH moves towards the open Pacific. The statistically significant increase of pressure in the centre of the AH in January is closely related to the shifting of the system to the north-east. The positive pressure trend in the centre of the AH in January combined with the zero trend in July is the cause of diminishing difference between summer and winter air pressure value of the high. Due to increased sea surface temperature of the Atlantic, the AH does not lose its strength in winter as it used to a few decades ago.