Abstract Atmospheric rivers (ARs) constitute a global, interconnected highway network rather than isolated regional events. In boreal summer, cross‐Pacific ARs originate over Southeast Asia, are fueled by subtropical outflows from the Asian monsoon plume, transport warm, moist air across the North Pacific, and make landfall in North America (NA). Our results show that diabatic heating anomalies over the Indian summer monsoon region and the Philippine Sea–Western North Pacific area jointly modulate AR pathways and landfalls. Numerical experiments verify that distinct heating archetypes generate diverse downstream triple‐pressure circulation structures, steering ARs toward different landfall locations. Cross‐Pacific AR activity is also modulated by climate oscillations; different phases preferentially induce distinct Indo‐Pacific heating patterns and thus redirect AR pathways. Therefore, tropical heating anomalies in Indo‐Western Pacific are valuable predictors of boreal‐summer AR activity. The interconnected “AR highways” linking Asian climate to NA and extend the predictability beyond Asia to the broader Pacific Rim.
Song et al. (Sat,) studied this question.