Time-varying relationships among oceanic and atmospheric modes: A turning point at around 1940.

Oceanic and atmospheric modes play a key role in modulating climate variations, particularly on interannual and interdecadal scales, causing an indirect response of regional climate to external forcings. This study comprehensively investigated the time-varying linkages among dominant oceanic and atmospheric modes of the Pacific and Atlantic areas on different timescales using the scale space multiresolution correlation analysis. For the Pacific Ocean, the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) shows closer matches with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) than with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). This indicates that the ENSO dominates climate variability of the whole Pacific Ocean not only on interannual but also on interdecadal scales. Interdecadal variations of the IPO appear to be more closely linked to southern Pacific Ocean climate before ∼1940, but become more closely linked to northern Pacific Ocean after ∼1940. The shifts on interdecadal connections among northern, tropical and southern parts of the Pacific Oceans seems to be related to the phase shifts of the IPO/PDO, which may contribute to the cooling trend from 1940s to 1970s. For the Atlantic Ocean, the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) is closely linked to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) on the interdecadal scale before ∼1940. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]