Uncovering the role of the East Asian jet stream and heterogeneities in atmospheric rivers affecting the western United States.

ABSTRACT: Atmospheric rivers (ARs) exert major socioeconomic repercussions along the US West Coast by inducing heavy rainfall, flooding, strong winds, and storm surge. Despite the significant societal and economic repercussions of these storms, our understanding of the physical drivers responsible for their interannual variability is limited, with different climate modes identified as possible mechanisms. Here we show that the Pacific-Japan (PJ) teleconnections/patterns and the East Asian subtropical jet (EASJ) exhibit a strong linkage with the total frequency of ARs making landfall over the western United States, much stronger than the other potential climate modes previously considered. While our findings indicate that the PJ pattern and EASJ are the most relevant climate modes driving the overall

SUBMITTER: Zhang W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5798373 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature