Double North Pacific High in Summer
- 1 4632 North lane, Del Mar, USA
Abstract
An example of sea level pressure (SLP) and sea surface temperature (SST) is displayed for a summer month based on historical monthly mean data for the North Pacific. A double North Pacific High (NPH) co-occurred with a double large-scale SST maximum along 40 N. Centers of the two NPHs had very nearly the same longitudes as did the SST maxima. Seven similar coincidences happened within the 30-year records. These particular associations between extrema of SLPs and SSTs enhance a previously published conjecture that single and double NPHs are caused by heat transfer from the sea surface to the atmosphere. The eastern SST maximum is the signature of a permanent wide warm surface current flowing northeast off California. To the west of it in the summer is a transient wide warm surge of surface water flowing north as it crosses mid-latitudes. These are the heat sources that generate the single and double NPHs.
- Kenyon, K.E. (1999) North Pacific High: A Hypothesis. Atmospheric Research, 51, 15-34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0169-8095(98)00110-0
- Kenyon, K.E. (2012) The Wide Warm Current of the North Pacific. Lambert Academic Publishing, Saarbrucken.
- Kenyon, K.E. (2014) North Pacific Month to Month SST Changes. Natural Science, 6, 1179-1185. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ns.2014.614105
- Fofonoff, N.P. (1960) Transport Computations for the North Pacific, 1955. Fisheries Research Board of Canada, Manuscript Report Series, No. 78.
- Kenyon, K.E. (1977) A Large-Scale Longitudinal Variation in Surface Temperature in the North Pacific. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 7, 256-263, Fig. 6.