Dominant modes of geopotential height in the northern hemisphere in summer on interdecadal timescales

Empirical orthogonal function （EOF） analysis is performed on the field of the northem hemisphere geopotential height at 200-hPa using a 54-year （1958-2011） record of summer data on an interdecadal time scale. The first dominant mode, which shows smooth semi-hemispheric variation with maximum action centers in the western hemisphere in the mid-latitudes over the eastern Pacific, North America, and the North Atlantic, is related to global warming. The second mode, which has a pronounced tropical-extratropical alternating pattern with active centers located over the eastern hemisphere from Western Europe across East Asia to the western Pacific, has a close relationship with the Arctic Oscillation. Further analysis results indicate that the two dominant modes show good correlation with the Arctic sea ice concentration （SIC）, with correlation coefficients between these two modes and the first two EOF modes of the Arctic SIC reaching 0.88 and 0.86, respectively.