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A harbor in Cabo San Lucas was damaged by Hurricane Genevieve.Tropical cyclone activity in the eastern North Pacific basin during the 2020 season was near average for total named storms but below a...

La Cuenca del Pacífico es una región que se caracteriza por su dinamismo económico. En ella se localizan algunas de las economías más importantes del mundo que integran asociaciones y acuerdos comerciales relevantes, entre ellos el Foro de Cooperación Económica de Asia-Pacífico (APEC, por sus siglas en inglés). Un elemento que distingue al APEC, es que muchas de las economías que lo integran cuentan con fuertes infraestructuras portuarias y un movimiento importante de mercancías mediante contenedores, lo que puede incidir en su eficiencia. Esto les aporta una ventaja en el comercio marítimo. Por ello, el objetivo de este artículo es analizar si el movimiento de contenedores contribuye a mejorar la eficiencia técnica del APEC. Para el análisis se emplea la metodología de Stochastic Frontier Analysis. Entre los resultados destacan que las principales economías operadoras de carga de contenedores, en general, mejoran su eficiencia, aun cuando también se detecta que existe un marginal proceso de divergencia en ésta.

Although tropical cyclone (TC) track forecast errors (TFEs) of operational warning centres have substantially decreased in recent decades, there are still many cases with large TFEs. The International Grand Global Ensemble (TIGGE) data are used to study the possible reasons for the large TFE cases and to compare the performance of different numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. Forty-four TCs in the western North Pacific during the period 2007–2014 with TFEs (+24 to +120 h) larger than the 75th percentile of the annual error distribution (with a total of 93 cases) are identified. Four categories of situations are found to be associated with large TFEs. These include the interaction of the outer structure of the TC with tropical weather systems, the intensity of the TC, the extension of the subtropical high (SH) and the interaction with the westerly trough. The crucial factor of each category attributed to the large TFE is discussed. Among the TIGGE model predictions, the models of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and the UK Met Office generally have a smaller TFE. The performance of different models in different situations is discussed.

The continuous development of DC technology and its increasing implementation in projects, mainly in Europe, North America, and Asia, have created the need for methodologies to plan the DC interconnections between countries. However, the planning process should not be developed in a local context but rather, in the long run, thus enabling the inclusion of regional electrical systems. This paper presents two main methodologies. The first one aims to design local Multi-Terminal DC grids (MTDC) at the national level, using the graph theory. The second methodology presented is the integration of local MTDC grids that can later be extended to regional, continental, or subcontinental grids. The methodology is applied in the planning of regional electrical integration of the Pacific basin countries.

This study is relevant to investors who wish to diversify their investment portfolio by investing in U.S.-based investment companies that invest in specific Pacific Basin countries to better understand the diversification benefits of such investments. The purpose is to examine the daily returns of selected U.S.-based, country-focused (Pacific Basin) investment companies to see if those returns accurately reflect the changes of the equity indices of the corresponding Pacific Basin market on the following trading day. The method used is that the reactions of daily investment company returns compared to U.S. market daily returns are examined for Japan, South Korea, and Australia for the period 2006–2010. These return reactions are compared to the home-country returns. Next, for the period from 2011 to 2015, the examination is broadened to include U.S.-based investment companies that invest in Taiwan, Singapore, China, and Indonesia. The results show that investment company share prices on “day t” tend to overreact to changes in the S&P 500 on “day t”, relative to “day t+1” changes in the corresponding Pacific Basin market index – often by more than 100%. Finally, the study shows that on “day t+1” these investment company share prices exhibit a reversal. These findings indicate that the diversification benefits of investing in these Pacific Basin investment companies are reduced due to this increased volatility. S&P 500 returns are accompanied by significantly larger returns on the Pacific Basin investment company shares than are actually realized in the home country on the following day, suggesting that the diversification benefits are not being fully realized.

Using an assemblage of four ice cores collected around the Pacific basin, one of the first basinwide histories of Pacific climate variability has been created. This ice core–derived index of the interdecadal Pacific oscillation (IPO) incorporates ice core records from South America, the Himalayas, the Antarctic Peninsula, and northwestern North America. The reconstructed IPO is annually resolved and dates to 1450 CE. The IPO index compares well with observations during the instrumental period and with paleo-proxy assimilated datasets throughout the entire record, which indicates a robust and temporally stationary IPO signal for the last ~550 years. Paleoclimate reconstructions from the tropical Pacific region vary greatly during the Little Ice Age (LIA), although the reconstructed IPO index in this study suggests that the LIA was primarily defined by a weak, negative IPO phase and hence more La Niña–like conditions. Although the mean state of the tropical Pacific Ocean during the LIA remains uncertain, the reconstructed IPO reveals some interesting dynamical relationships with the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). In the current warm period, a positive (negative) IPO coincides with an expansion (contraction) of the seasonal latitudinal range of the ITCZ. This relationship is not stationary, however, and is virtually absent throughout the LIA, suggesting that external forcing, such as that from volcanoes and/or reduced solar irradiance, could be driving either the ITCZ shifts or the climate dominating the ice core sites used in the IPO reconstruction.

Using the nonlinear quantile regression and realized moments techniques, this study finds evidence that financial uncertainty is negatively associated with a sustainable interdependence (i.e., comovement) of stock and government bond markets in the Pacific basin region. Besides, investors’ affirmative expectation for the future economic state is positively associated with comovement of the asset markets in this region. The former supports the validity of the flight-to-quality for the asset market comovement and the latter validates the wealth effectin this region. Our findings imply that interdependence of stock and bond markets is crucial for investors’ efficient diversification and sustainable economic growth via effective securities financing of companies in the country.

To clarify characteristics and mechanisms of mesoscale variability in the deep ocean, we conducted a two-dimensional observation with a 3 × 3 grid mooring array around site R (30°N, 147°E) during 2014–16. We analyze the obtained velocity data together with past mooring observation data in the northwest Pacific basin and outputs of an ocean general circulation model (OGCM). In our two-dimensional mooring observations, the variability of zonal and meridional velocities at a depth of 4000 m was prominent at periods of 174 and 58 days, respectively. The variability at periods of 174 and 58 days propagated to the northwest and west-southwest, respectively, as a single plane wave. The variability at the period of 58 days was considered to be topographic Rossby waves (TRWs) under stratification originated in the Kuroshio Extension region north of site R, as demonstrated by our previous study. At the period of 174 days, zonal and meridional wavenumbers estimated from the phase lag for zonal velocities also satisfied the dispersion relation of TRWs under stratification. Backward ray tracing from site R indicated that energy of TRWs propagated from the eastern slope of the Shatsky Rise to site R almost along f/H contours, where f is the Coriolis parameter and H is water depth. The orientation of major axis of variance ellipses at periods of 174 days and longer, obtained from the past mooring observations and the OGCM outputs, tended to be parallel to f/H contours, being consistent with the direction of energy propagation of TRWs.

The basin-scale subtropical oceanic front zone (STFZ) is a key region for midlatitude air–sea interaction in the North Pacific. However, previous studies considered midlatitude sea surface temperature (SST) variabilities as a response to atmospheric stochastic forcing. With reanalysis and observational data, this study investigates what kinds of atmospheric anomalies drive the wintertime North Pacific STFZ intensity variation. Lead correlations show that prior to the STFZ’s enhancement, there exist persistent atmospheric anomalies characterized by a negative-phase Arctic Oscillation (AO) and a positive-phase Pacific–North American (PNA) pattern, lasting for up to 80 and 50 days and peaking at 20- and 8-day leads, respectively. It is further found that the long-lasting negative-phase AO is conducive to stronger low-tropospheric baroclinicity at around 40°N over North Pacific where there is a climatological baroclinic region. The stronger baroclinicity leads to more synoptic transient eddy activities, promoting an equivalent barotropic low geopotential height anomaly north of STFZ via transient eddy vorticity forcing. The geopotential height anomaly propagates downstream, triggering a PNA-like pattern. With such an AO-promoted atmospheric internal wave–flow feedback, the regional PNA pattern is intensified and embedded in the annular AO mode, accompanied with an intensified Aleutian low and surface westerly wind that peak at an 8-day lead, preconditioning a persistent (nonstochastic) atmospheric forcing on the STFZ. The intensified surface westerly predominantly tends to drive a southward Ekman transport and increase upward surface turbulent heat fluxes into the atmosphere through increasing surface wind speed and sea–air temperature difference, amplifying the underlying negative SST anomaly and cross-frontal meridional SST gradient, ultimately intensifying the STFZ.

The Atlantic and Pacific basin are found linked in the context of multidecadal SST variability from analyses of 118 years of observational data. Recurrent spatiotemporal variability, including multidecadal modes, was identified using the extended-EOF technique in a longitudinally global domain, allowing unfettered expression of interbasin interactions. The physicality of the obtained decadal modes was assessed using fishery records and analog counts.A three-mode structure with bi-directional interbasin links frames the new perspective on the cycling of multidecadal SST variability. The three modes are the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO), low-frequency North Atlantic Oscillation (LF-NAO), and North Pacific decadal variability [PDV-NP; resembling negative (–ve) PDO]. The two previously documented links AMO→PDV-NP (with ~12.5-yr lead) and LF-NAO→AMO (with 16-yr lead) are corroborated, while a third one, PDV-NP→(−LF-NAO) with ~6.5-yr lead, is uncovered. The interaction triad closes the loop on the cycling of multidecadal SST variability, generating AMO’s phase reversal in ~35 years, consistent with its widely noted ~70-yr time scale. The two previously noted links—one intrabasin and one interbasin—were unsuccessful in this regard.Other findings include the deeper subsurface extensions of Atlantic multidecadal SST variability, and the hitherto unrecognized similarity of Pan-Pacific decadal variability and North Pacific Gyre Oscillation. Instrumental records, albeit short in the context of multidecadal variability, must continue to be mined for insights into the functioning of the climate system as its model representations while improving, remain inadequate.

cidade e o porto de Lázaro Cárdenas apresentam contrastes diferenciados quanto ao seu crescimento que mostram divergências e uma reconfiguração espacial própria. Destacam-se suas características geográficas: localização na Bacia do Pacífico, excelente hidrografia, território com baixas elevações e jazidas minerais na região, fatores que propiciaram a criação de um grande porto inserido na globalização, atualmente, com estrutura de categoria mundial, e a Siderúrgica Lázaro-Cárdenas Truchas, ambos complexos têm desempenhado um papel preponderante. A metodologia aplicada é mista, quantitativa e qualitativa obtida através da cartografia básica com informações associadas. São expostos os antecedentes da criação da cidade e do porto, faz-se a caracterização das transformações espaciais de ambos os locais, o urbano e o portuário, e sua relação com a ocorrência de fatos relevantes ao seu desenvolvimento. Conclui-se haver uma marcante desarticulação entre o crescimento espacial da cidade e o do porto.