During the recent decades of satellite era, more tropical cyclogenesis locations (TCLs) were observed over the northwestern part of the western North Pacific (WNP), relative to the southeastern part, during the boreal autumn. This increase in TCLs over the northwestern WNP is largely attributed to the synergy of shifting El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the 1998 Pacific climate regime shift. Both central Pacific (CP) La Niña and CP El Niño have occurred more frequently since 1998, with only one eastern Pacific El Niño observed in autumn 2015. The change in the mean longitude of TCLs is closely linked to the ENSO diversity, whereas the change in the mean latitude is dominated by the warming of the WNP induced by an interdecadal tendency of CP La Niña-like events. The physical mechanisms responsible for this shifting ENSO-TCL linkage can be potentially explained by the tacit-and-mutual configurations between tropical upper-tropospheric trough and monsoon trough, on both interannual and interdecadal timescales, which is mainly due to the ENSO-related large-scale environment changes in ocean and atmosphere that modulate the WNP TCL.

Arctic climate changes include not only changes in trends and mean states but also strong interannual variations in various fields. Although it is known that tropical-extratropical teleconnection is sensitive to changes in flavours of El Niño, whether Arctic climate variability is linked to El Niño, in particular on interannual timescale, remains unclear. Here we demonstrate for the first time a long-range linkage between central Pacific (CP) El Niño and summer Arctic climate. Observations show that the CP warming related to CP El Niño events deepens the tropospheric Arctic polar vortex and strengthens the circumpolar westerly wind, thereby contributing to inhibiting summer Arctic warming and sea-ice melting. Atmospheric model experiments can generally capture the observed responses of Arctic circulation and robust surface cooling to CP El Niño forcing. We suggest that identification of the equator-Arctic teleconnection, via the ‘atmospheric bridge', can potentially contribute to improving the skill of predicting Arctic climate.

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