The Influence of South Pacific Convergence Zone Heating on the South Pacific Subtropical Anticyclone

Subtropical anticyclones and midlatitude storm tracks are key components of the large-scale atmospheric circulation. Focusing on the Southern Hemisphere, the seasonality of the three dominant subtropical anticyclones, situated over the South Pacific, South Atlantic, and south Indian Ocean basins, has a large influence on local weather and climate within South America, southern Africa, and Australia, respectively. Generally speaking, sea level pressure within the Southern Hemisphere subtropics reaches its seasonal maximum during the winter season when the Southern Hemisphere Hadley cell is at its strongest. One exception to this is the seasonal evolution of the South Pacific subtropical anticyclone. While winter maxima are seen in the South Atlantic and south Indian subtropical anticyclones, the South Pacific subtropical anticyclone reaches its seasonal maximum during local spring with elevated values extending into summer. In this study, we investigate the hypothesis that the strength of the austral summer South Pacific subtropical anticyclone is largely due to heating over the South Pacific convergence zone. Using added-cooling and added-heating atmospheric general circulation model experiments to artificially change the strength of austral summer diabatic heating over the South Pacific convergence zone, our results show that increased heating, through increased upper-level divergence, triggers a Rossby wave train that extends into the Southern Hemisphere midlatitudes. This propagating Rossby wave train creates a high and low sea level pressure pattern that projects onto the center of the South Pacific subtropical anticyclone to intensify its area and strength.