Deep
convection and
heat transfer to the
troposphere is enhanced over anomalously warm sea surface temperatures in the tropics, such as during, but by no means limited to,
El Niño events. This tropical forcing generates atmospheric Rossby waves that propagates poleward and eastward and are subsequently
refracted back from the pole to the tropics.
Poleward-propagating Rossby waves explain many of the observed statistical teleconnections between low latitude and high latitude climate, as shown in the now classic study by Hoskins and Karoly (1981).
[3] Poleward-propagating Rossby waves are an important and unambiguous part of the variability in the Northern Hemisphere, as expressed in the Pacific North America pattern. Similar mechanisms apply in the Southern Hemisphere and partly explain the strong variability in the
Amundsen Sea region of
Antarctica.
[4] In 2011, a
Nature Geoscience study using
general circulation models linked Pacific Rossby waves generated by increasing central tropical Pacific temperatures to warming of the Amundsen Sea region, leading to winter and spring continental warming of
Ellsworth Land and
Marie Byrd Land in
West Antarctica via an increase in
advection.
[5]