Modulation of atmospheric rivers near Alaska and the U.S. West Coast by northeast Pacific height anomalies

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Abstract

Abstract Atmospheric rivers (ARs) can cause wide‐ranging impacts upon landfall at high northern latitudes, but comparatively little is known about the dynamics supporting these ARs in contrast to their midlatitude counterparts. Here ARs near the U.S. West Coast and the Gulf of Alaska during 1979–2015 are compared. ARs are found to occur in both regions with similar frequency, but with different seasonality. Composited atmospheric conditions from the NASA Modern‐Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications data set reveal that a broad height anomaly over the northeast Pacific is influential to AR activity in both regions. When a positive height anomaly exists over the northeast Pacific, AR activity is often deflected poleward toward Alaska, while the U.S. West Coast experiences a decrease in AR activity. The opposing relationship also applies; that is, AR activity is decreased near Alaska and increased along the U.S. West Coast in the presence of a negative height anomaly. Quantitatively, nearly 79% of Gulf of Alaska ARs are associated with a positive northeast Pacific height anomaly and 86% of U.S. West Coast ARs are associated with a negative anomaly. Results suggest that this relationship applies across a range of time scales, to include subseasonal and interannual, not just with respect to individual transient waves. Both ARs and height anomalies are found to be associated with Rossby wave breaking, thereby dynamically linking AR activity with broader North Pacific dynamics.

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