Zonal Asymmetries, Teleconnections, and Annular Patterns in a GCM

The influence of zonally asymmetric boundary conditions on the leading modes of variability in a suite of atmospheric general circulation models is investigated. The set of experiments consists of nine model configurations, with varying degrees and types of zonal asymmetry in their boundary conditions. The structure of the leading EOF varies with the zonal asymmetry of the base state for each model configuration. In particular, a close relationship is found between the structure of the EOF and the model storm tracks. An approximately linear relationship is found to hold between the magnitude of the zonal asymmetry of the leading EOF and of the storm tracks in the models. It is shown that this linear relationship extends to the observations. One-point correlation maps centered on the regions where the EOFs reach their maximum amplitude show similar structures for all configurations. These structures consist of a north–south dipole, resembling the observed structure of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). They are significantly more zonally localized than the leading EOF, but do resemble one-point correlation maps and sector EOFs calculated for a simulation with zonally symmetric boundary conditions. Thus, the leading EOF for each simulation appears to represent the longitudinal distribution of zonally localized NAO-like patterns. This longitudinal distribution appears to be tied to the distribution of high-frequency eddies, as represented by the storm tracks. A detailed momentum budget for each case confirms that high-frequency eddies play a crucial role in producing the NAO-like patterns. Other dynamical processes also play an important role, but vary with the details of the simulation.