Atmospheric Responses and Feedback to the Meridional Ocean Heat Transport in the North Pacific

Atmospheric responses and feedback to meridional ocean heat transport (OHT) have been investigated using a global climate model that is interactively connected with a high-resolution regional ocean model embedded in the western North Pacific. Compared with a global climate model without the regional model, the net heat supply into the Kuroshio–Oyashio Extension (KOE) region is increased as a result of the increase of the mean northward ocean heat transport (OHT) by the western boundary currents and mesoscale eddies. Resultant sea surface temperature (SST) rise sharpens the meridional SST gradient and reinforces the cross-frontal difference of the surface heat flux and thereby enhances lower-tropospheric baroclinicity. These changes cause northward deflection and strengthening of the wintertime storm track over the North Pacific, which leads to the Pacific–North American (PNA)-like pattern anticyclonic response of the mean westerly jet. The increase of the eddy northward atmospheric heat flux (AHF)...