Unraveling the Teleconnection Mechanisms that Induce Wintertime Temperature Anomalies over the Northern Hemisphere Continents in Response to the MJO

Significant extratropical surface air temperature variations arise as a result of teleconnections induced by the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO). The authors elucidate the detailed physical processes responsible for the development of temperature anomalies over Northern Hemisphere continents in response to MJO-induced heating using an intraseasonal perturbation thermodynamic equation and a wave activity tracing technique. A quantitative assessment demonstrates that surface air temperature variations are due to dynamical processes associated with a meridionally propagating Rossby wave train. Over East Asia, a local Hadley circulation causes adiabatic subsidence following MJO phase 3 to be a main driver for the warming. Meanwhile, for North America and eastern Europe, horizontal temperature advection by northerlies or southerlies is the key process for warming or cooling. A ray-tracing analysis illustrates that Rossby waves with zonal wavenumbers 2 and 3 influence the surface warming over North America and a faster wavenumber 4 affects surface temperature over eastern Europe. Although recent studies demonstrate the impacts of the Arctic Oscillation, Arctic sea ice melting, and Eurasian snow cover variations on extremely cold wintertime episodes over the NH extratropics, the weather and climate there are still considerably modulated through teleconnections induced by the tropical heat forcing. In addition, the authors show that the MJO is a real source of predictability for strong warm/cold events over these continents, suggesting a higher possibility of making a skillful forecast of temperature extremes with over 1 month of lead time.