Role of Latent Heating over the Tropical Western Pacific in Surface Temperature Change over North America during Boreal Spring

Based on observational data, a linear baroclinic model, and an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM), the major modes of spring precipitation over the tropical Asian and Pacific regions are identified. and the influence of latent heating over the tropical western Pacific (TWP) on global climate is investigated. Results show that the first mode of empirical orthogonal function analysis explains 20% of the total variance in March, the largest in spring, with the maximum center located over the TWP. The precipitation is highly positively correlated with local sea surface temperature (SST) in March, which suggests that the warming SST is the trigger for the precipitation over the TWP. Further analysis suggests that an increase in latent heating over the TWP, especially in March, can produce Rossby waves along the westerly jet, which causes an increase in surface temperature over North America. The propagation intensity decreases from March to May. The changes in location and strength of the westerly jet stream in the Northern Hemisphere are responsible for this decrease. Experiments with both a linear baroclinic model and an AGCM verify the above hypothesis. The study highlights that the spatial distributions of latent heating and westerly jet stream are the two key factors for the formation of teleconnection patterns from eastern Asia to North America.