Interhemispheric interactions

Abstract

Diagnoses of global data sets are presented that indicate strong coupling between the regions of enhanced tropical convection of the summer hemisphere and subtropical jet stream maxima of the winter hemisphere. One curious aspect of this coupling is that it tends to occur through zones of easterly winds at upper tropospheric levels. This characterizes the El Nino event of 1983, an upper connection of the Asian monsoon to the Australian jet in FGGE and DST data and shorter term transitions during the First Special Observing Period of FGGE. The reasons for the apparent propagation through easterly wind zones remain to be clarified.