Influence of Orography on the Extratropical Response to El Niño Events

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Abstract
The contribution of the interaction between tropically forced circulation anomalies and the extratropicalmountains in the generation of extratropical circulation anomalies during the 1987/88 and 1988/89 winter seasons is diagnosed using a divergent barotropic model that solves for both the zonal-mean and eddy components of the 200-mb rotational anomalies. Barotropic modeling shows that the orographic modulation of the rotational response to the 200-mb tropical divergence anomaly can be substantial over the Pacific–North American region. These findings indicate the potential importance of secondary orographic interaction in the generation of extratropical circulation anomalies in response to tropical heating anomalies. Experiments with more complete dynamical models that predict both the rotational and divergent components of the flow in response to tropical heating anomalies are clearly warranted.

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