Long-term changes of the thermal characteristics in the Japan Sea surface water and peter the great bay and their relationship with large-scale climatic processes

Abstract

Analysis of the long-period changes of the surface thermal characteristics in the Japan Sea, including the ice cover of Peter the Great Bay, was carried on the basis of the regional databases formed from open sources. The relationship of the observed changes with large-scale processes characterized by well-known climatic indices was investigated. It was revealed that surface temperature changes in the Japan Sea, its Northern part and in Peter the Great Bay in winter and summer occur synchronously. In the new century (2001–2017), the growth rate of the sea surface temperature slowed down in comparison with the last 25 years of the 20th century. The most influential in these areas were the large-scale processes, which are characterized by the index of the Siberian anticyclone and the West Pacific index. We also analyzed the sustainability of the statistical relationships between regional thermal characteristics and large-scale climate indices. Special attention was paid to the change in the character of the relationships at different time periods. The pronounced rearrangements of the linkages accompanied by a change in the sign of the correlation coefficients corresponded to the well known climatic regime shifts in most of the cases under study. The most notable restructuring occurred in 1988/89.