“…Monthly means of horizontal winds, vertical winds, sea level pressure (SLP), geopotential height (GPH), surface net solar radiation, and 2‐m air temperature (2mT) variables are analyzed. To identify the leading spatio‐temporal modes of variability, an empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis is performed on the linearly detrended ERA‐Interim dataset (e.g., Yadav, ; ; ; Chowdary et al ., ; Chen et al ., ). A correlation analysis is also performed at the 95% significance level, computed based on the Student's t ‐distribution with ( N −2) degrees of freedom, where N is the number of years in the record, to investigate significant relationships between the AP SATs and large‐scale circulation patterns.…”