Impressive and long - lived wind anomalies at all levels of the atmosphere have been associated with these geopotential height and
sea level pressure anomalies in the North Pacific.
The map
of sea level pressure anomalies (in millibars) for December 2009, shows higher than average pressures over Arctic latitudes (areas in orange and red) and lower than average pressures over north Pacific and North Atlantic oceans (areas in blue and purple.
In general, indices of the annular modes are based on either 1) the leading principal component (PC) time series of gridded geopotential height anomalies at a given pressure level or 2) approximations of the leading PC time series of geopotential height anomalies using differences between
sea level pressure anomalies at stations in middle and high latitudes.
Here we examine how sensitive the SAM (defined as the leading empirical orthogonal function of
SH sea level pressure anomalies) is to future GHG concentrations.
In addition to incorporating data on October Eurasian snow cover extent, sea surface temperature, other inputs into the forecasts include anomalies from the fall season such
as sea level pressure anomalies and sea ice concentration anomalies.
The predictions make use of October Siberian snow cover,
sea level pressure anomalies and equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies.
Differences in
the sea level pressure anomalies in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific are also observed when comparing the precursors prior to vortex displacements and splits.
Figure 4: (a) May temperature anomaly at 850mb height; (b) June temperature anomaly at 850mb height; (c) June
sea level pressure anomaly; (d) July - August temperature anomaly at 850mb height; (e) July - August sea level pressure anomaly.
The plot above shows July 2016 Arctic air temperature anomalies at the 925 hPa level in degrees Celsius and
sea level pressure anomalies.