Vm. Mehta et al., Oceanic influence on the North Atlantic Oscillation and associated Northern Hemisphere climate variations: 1959-1993, GEOPHYS R L, 27(1), 2000, pp. 121-124
The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) exhibits variations at interannual to
multidecadal time scales and is associated with climate variations over eas
tern North America, the North Atlantic, Europe, and North Africa. Therefore
, it is very important to understand causes of these NAO variations and ass
ess their predictability. It has been hypothesized, based on observations,
that sea surface temperature (SST) and sea-ice variations in the North Atla
ntic Ocean influence the NAG. We describe results of an ensemble of Sixteen
experiments with an atmospheric general circulation model in which we used
observed SST and sea-ice boundary conditions globally during 1949-1993. We
show that multiyear NAO and associated climate variations can be simulated
reasonably accurately if results from a large number of experiments are av
eraged. We also show that the ambiguous results of previous NAO modeling st
udies were strongly influenced by the ensemble size, which was much smaller
than that in the present study. The implications of these results for unde
rstanding and predictability of the NAO are discussed.