2011 Articles

The Interannual Relationship between the Latitude of the Eddy-Driven Jet and the Edge of the Hadley Cell

Kang, Sarah M.; Polvani, Lorenzo M.

A strong correlation between the latitudes of the eddy-driven jet and of the Hadley cell edge, on interannual time scales, is found to exist during austral summer, in both the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis and the models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, phase 3 (CMIP3). In addition, a universal ratio close to 1:2 characterizes the robust connection between these two latitudes on a year-to-year basis: for a 2° shift of the eddy-driven jet, the edge of the Hadley cell shifts by 1°. This 1:2 interannual ratio remains the same in response to climate change, even though the values of the two latitudes increase. The corresponding trends are also highly correlated; in the CMIP3 scenario integrations, however, no universal ratio appears to exist connecting these long-term trends. In austral winter and in the Northern Hemisphere, no strong interannual correlations are found.