An attempt was made to verify and further investigate a proposed relationship between the location of the maximum east-west sea surface temperature anomaly gradient (ΔSSTA) and the location of the maximum meridional component of the anomalous 700 mb geostrophic wind (VgA) in the North Pacific on a monthly and seasonal time scale. Previous empirical studies, mostly of a case study type, had suggested collocation of maximum values of these variables in the same time period, particularly during the cold seasons. Using 31 years of monthly sea surface temperature and 700 mb height data for the North Pacific, the two variables wore computed for each month and 3-month periods for each 10° longitude sector from 125°W to 155°E, and for each of three latitude bands (55–40°N, 40–25°N, 55–25°N). From these calculations, the spatial relationships of the two variables wore determined by counting frequencies of the collocation of maximum VgA and ΔSSTA for each month or season and latitude band, and by computing...
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Harnack et al. (1979) studied this question.