q 2004 American Meteorological Society The Teleconnection between the Western Indian and the Western Pacific Oceans

Shown in this study are a teleconnection pattern relating outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) anomalies over the western Pacific Ocean and sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) over the western Indian Ocean over two seasons [September–October–November (SON) and December–January–February (DJF)] at zero lag from observations and atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) integrations. This teleconnection pattern sug-gests that a positive SSTA in the SON and DJF seasons over the western Indian Ocean increases the contem-poraneous positive OLR anomalies over the western Pacific Ocean. This teleconnection pattern is also simulated by the Center for Ocean–Land–Atmosphere studies (COLA) AGCM forced with observed SST. From the ex-perimental COLA AGCM runs (wherein the Pacific Ocean SST variability is suppressed except for the clima-tological annual cycle), it is diagnosed that the interannual variability of OLR over the western Pacific Ocean persists because of this teleconnection. This teleconnection pattern is found to be associated with the modulation of the equatorial zonal wind circulation by the western Indian Ocean SSTAs. 1