Pacific–North American teleconnection pattern
Large-scale weather pattern with two modes / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Pacific–North American teleconnection pattern (PNA) is a large-scale weather pattern with two modes, denoted positive and negative, and which relates the atmospheric circulation pattern over the North Pacific Ocean with the one over the North American continent. It is the second leading mode of natural climate variability in the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere (behind the Arctic Oscillation or North Atlantic Oscillation) and can be diagnosed using the arrangement of anomalous geopotential heights or air pressures over the North Pacific and North America.[1][2]
On average, the troposphere over North America features a ridge on the western part of the continent and a trough over the eastern part of the continent.[3] The positive phase of the PNA teleconnection is identified by anomalously low geopotential heights south of the Aleutian Islands and over Southeastern U.S. straddling high geopotential heights over the North Pacific from Hawaii to the U.S. Intermountain West.[1] This represents an amplification of the long-term average conditions.[3] The negative phase features the opposite pattern over the same regions, with above-average geopotential heights straddling below-average heights.[1] This represents a damping of the long-term average conditions.[3]