The Roles of the West Pacific Ocean Warm Pool and Subseasonal Activity on the USA Extreme 2013–14 Winter

The purpose of this work is to demonstrate that the circulation pattern responsible for the record breaking anomalous USA cold (and UK storms) during the 2013-14 winter was primarily forced by the advancement of the western Pacific Ocean warm pool, not other factors such as Arctic Amplification or “polar vortex”. Periodic cold outbreaks could be linked to subseasonal convective flare-ups across the warm pool, with each event slightly farther east as it advanced. It was important to identify these processes in real-time to make reasonably successful monthly subseasonal outlooks. Goals of this work include: (1) to scientifically demonstrate how information derived from a multiple time-scale weather-climate linkage framework (Weickmann and Berry (2007, 2009) Global Synoptic-Dynamic Model for subseasonal variability (GSDM)) could be leveraged in real-time to make important business decisions in industries such as power and energy, and (2) suggest important areas of research such as the role of climate change on phenomena such as ENSO and MJO.