Abstract
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is the leading mode of North Pacific climate variability, yet its response to climate change remains uncertain. Here, we use Linear Inverse Model (LIM) diagnostics to decompose PDO into three dynamical constituents: the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension (KOE) mode, the North Pacific–Central Tropical Pacific (NP-CP) mode, and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) mode. Applying an observationally derived LIM large ensemble, we show that the relative importance of these modes varies substantially over 85-year periods due to internal climate variability—requiring at least 300 years for stationary estimates. LIMs trained on climate model ensembles reveal that, despite comparable variability, models exhibit systematic biases in representing the spatial structures of the KOE and NP-CP modes. Under global warming, models project a more dominant ENSO contribution and a diminished KOE influence, leading to a shortened PDO timescale. This LIM-based dynamical decomposition enables more direct comparisons of PDO mechanisms between models and observations.
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Data availability
Data related to the paper can be downloaded from the following websites: HadISSTv1.1,https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisst/; NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis, https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.derived.html;CESM large ensemble, https://www.cesm.ucar.edu/community-projects/lens; CMIP6 database, https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/projects/cmip6/.
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All codes are available from the corresponding author on request.
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Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Number 42225606, RGMA DOE Grant DE-SC0023228, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Number 42405051, the National Key R&D Program of China under Grant Number 2023YFF0805102, 2023YFF0805200, and the Taishan Scholars Program (No. tsqn202306298 and No. tsqn202306299).
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S.W. and E.D.L. conceptualized and led the work; M.N., Z.L., and Y.Z. conducted the analysis in discussion; S.W. and E.D.L. wrote the manuscript; S.W., Y.Z., and D.S. contributed to the LIM analysis; A.C., S.S., and Y.L. contributed to interpreting results and improving this paper.
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Wu, S., Di Lorenzo, E., Zhao, Y. et al. Decomposition of pacific decadal oscillation sheds light on its dominant modes and future response using linear inverse model. npj Clim Atmos Sci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-025-01315-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-025-01315-2
