资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

The equatorial Pacific Walker Circulation (EPWC), characterized by ascending motion (lower sea-level pressure [SLP]) over Indonesia and descending motion (higher SLP) over the Eastern Pacific, has been widely recognized. Yet, little is known about a zonal circulation over the North Pacific (hereafter referred to as NPZC) with ascent over the west coast of Canada and descent over the east coast of Russia, which plays an important role in maintaining Northern Hemisphere mid-latitude climate. Here we provide evidence for the existence of the NPZC by comparing the eastern and western North Pacific around 50 degrees N with the western and eastern equatorial Pacific, respectively. We find that the EPWC and NPZC bear strong similarity in many essential aspects, such as the zonal gradients of temperature and SLP, precipitation records and prevailing winds, and so on, thus, suggesting a NPZC. The existence of a NPZC is also strongly supported by observations in situ using radiosonde balloon soundings as well as numerical simulations.