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This study examines Northern Hemisphere winter (DJFM) atmospheric responses to opposite strong phases of interdecadal (low frequency, LF) Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) forcing, which resembles El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on a longer time scale, in observations and GFDL and CAM4 model simulations. Over the Pacific-North America (PNA) sector, linear observed responses of 500-hPa height (Z500) anomalies resemble the PNA teleconnection pattern, but show a PNA-like nonlinear response because of a westward Z500 shift in the negative (LF−) relative to the positive LF (LF+) phase. Significant extratropical linear responses include a North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)-like Z500 anomaly, a dipole-like Z500 anomaly over northern Eurasia associated with warming over mid-high latitude Eurasia, and a Southern Annular anomaly pattern associated with warming in southern land areas. Significant nonlinear Z500 responses also include a NAO-like anomaly pattern. Models forced by LF+ and LF− SST anomalies reproduce many aspects of observed linear and nonlinear responses over the Pacific-North America sector, and linear responses over southern land, but not in the North Atlantic-European sector and Eurasia. Both models simulate PNA-like linear responses in the North Pacific-North America region similar to observed, but show larger PNA-like LF+ responses, resulting in a PNA nonlinear response. The nonlinear PNA responses result from both nonlinear western tropical Pacific rainfall changes and extratropical transient eddy feedbacks. With LF tropical Pacific forcing only (LFTP+ and LFTP−, climatological SST elsewhere), CAM4 simulates a significant NAO response to LFTP−, including a linear negative and nonlinear positive NAO response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]