Large‐scale variabilities of wintertime wind stress curl field in the North Pacific and their relation to atmospheric teleconnection patterns

Wintertime wind stress curl (WSC) field in the North Pacific is investigated to reveal large‐scale variabilities and their relation to atmospheric teleconnection patterns. It is found that the leading empirical orthogonal function (EOF) and the next three rotated‐EOF modes of wintertime WSC anomalies well correspond to those of atmospheric teleconnection patterns, i.e., Pacific/North American (PNA), Western Pacific (WP), Tropical/Northern Hemisphere (TNH), and Eastern Pacific (EP) teleconnection patterns, respectively. Time coefficient of the first EOF mode well correlates with the North Pacific Index, and does with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation Index, to some degree. It is also found that Sverdrup transports in the two zonal bands of 25°N–30°N and 42.5°N–47.5°N have highly negative correlation and these variations can be represented by the forcing field of the first EOF mode: the PNA forcing makes both subtropical and subpolar gyres spin‐up/spin‐down simultaneously.