Is the North Atlantic Oscillation a breaking wave?
Christian Franzke, New York Univ., New York, NY; and S. Lee and S. B. Feldstein Given the recent observational evidence that the positive (negative) phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is the remnant of anticyclonic (cyclonic) wave breaking, this study uses a multi-level primitive equation model to investigate important dynamical attributes to the above wave breaking behaviour. For this purpose, a hierarchy of different basic states (two- and three-dimensional) and initial perturbations are used. With the three-dimensional climatological flow as the basic state, it is found that initial perturbations located equatorward (poleward) and upstream of the climatological Atlantic jet lead to wave breaking similar to that of the positive (negative) NAO phase. Consistently, analysis of observational data indeed shows that the Pacific storm track is displaced equatorward (poleward) prior the onset of the positive (negative) NAO phase. This result suggests that the latitudinal position
