A Model Study on the 1988–89 Warming Event in the Northern North Pacific

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Abstract Using outputs of a high-resolution ocean general circulation model, upper-ocean heat content budget and mixed layer heat budget are analyzed to investigate the reason for the 1988–89 decadal warming event in the northern North Pacific. The model reproduces realistic upper-ocean temperature changes in comparison with observational data. This analysis suggests that the horizontal mean geostrophic advection of anomalous temperature is the main contributor to the heat content increase around 1988–89, and surface heat flux forcing is the main contributor to increasing mixed layer temperature. The anomalous geostrophic advection of mean temperature plays a negative role in the increase of both the upper-ocean heat content and mixed layer temperature in midlatitudes around 1988–89. Another negative contribution to the mixed layer temperature increase is provided by the Ekman advection. In the Kuroshio Extension region, the warm upper-ocean heat content anomaly appears in 1987–88, in which the mean geostrophic advection also plays a dominant role. South of Japan the decadal warming appears even earlier, around 1985–86. The anomalous Kuroshio transport shows a decadal decreasing trend since the early 1980s and therefore cannot explain the late 1980s warming event in midlatitudes. The 1988–89 event is found to be closely linked with the decadal change of the Kuroshio path south of Japan. It is found that subtropical Rossby waves may influence the decadal temperature changes south of Japan.