The Asian–Bering–North American Teleconnection: A Key Mode of Winter Temperature Co-Variability Across Eurasia and North America

Despite the ongoing global warming trend, winter temperature variability, particularly the recurrence of cold extremes across Eurasia and North America, has drawn considerable attention. These widespread anomalies suggest potentially coherent temperature variations between the two continents. Previous studies have identified the Asian–Bering–North American (ABNA) teleconnection as a key contributor to such in-phase winter temperature variations. The ABNA is characterized by a zonally elongated “negative–positive–negative” (or “positive–negative–positive”) geopotential height anomaly pattern extending across northern Asia, eastern Siberia–Alaska, and eastern North America. The ABNA is independent of, and often more dominant than, that of the ENSO-related Pacific–North American (PNA) pattern, explaining a larger portion of winter temperature variability over eastern North America. Our analysis reveals that the ABNA is intrinsically linked to the second leading mode of tropospheric thickness (a proxy for mean tropospheric temperature) variability in the Northern Hemisphere, while the first mode reflects Arctic warming. This finding positions the ABNA as a fundamental mode characterizing Eurasia–North America winter temperature co-variability. Further results show that the ABNA is modulated by both the Arctic stratospheric polar vortex (SPV) and tropical western Pacific SST anomalies. The ABNA pattern is dynamically coupled with a meridionally stretched SPV structure extending toward Eurasia and North America, forming a tropospheric bridge between the stratosphere and surface climate. This stratosphere–troposphere coupling may be initiated by Eurasian snow cover anomalies in the preceding autumn. In addition, tropical western Pacific SST anomalies can excite a poleward-propagating Rossby wave train that reinforces the ABNA pattern, in a manner comparable to but distinct from the ENSO–PNA connection. These findings highlight the ABNA as a critical and underappreciated pathway for winter climate variability and offer new sources of predictability for subseasonal-to-seasonal temperature forecasts across the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in eastern North America.