Coast sea level and Asian monsoon system a downscaling exercise for Chinese coast

Abstract

In this study, the authors examined the relationship between monthly sea level data and concurrent large-scale monthly mean sea level pressure and SST data for 1960 to 1990, which are reasonably well simulated by present day climate models; sea level variations due to variations of regional atmospheric forcing and oceanic circulation, are not adequately simulated by a global climate model because of insufficient spatial resolution. The authours applied a statistical “down scaling” strategy to sea level along the Chinese coast. Two interrelated processes were identified: one process is the local wind or wave set-up of water due to Asian monsoon wind anomalies; the other is the rainfall diluting effect in spring. At interdecadal time scale, the later becomes more important and most likely plays a major role in the planetary scale atmosphere-ocean interaction taking place in the eastern North Pacific.