The Global 3-Dimensional Structure of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is the dominant decadal mode of the Pacific coupled ocean-atmosphere climate system. Most of the previous studies on PDO focused on the surface conditions. This study examines the global 3-dimentional structure of the PDO using the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis data from 1948-2008. The results show that distinct climate anomaly patterns associated with PDO extend from the surface into the upper troposphere around the globe, even with some signals in the stratosphere. A detailed presentation of the results will be delivered at the conference.