Seasonality of Decadal Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies in the Northwestern Pacific

Abstract

Abstract The seasonality of the decadal sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies and the related physical processes in the northwestern Pacific were investigated using a three-dimensional bulk mixed layer model. In the Kuroshio–Oyashio Extension (KOE) region, the strongest decadal SST anomaly was observed during December–February, while that of the central North Pacific occurred during February–April. From an examination of the seasonal heat budget of the ocean mixed layer, it was revealed that the seasonal-scale enhancement of the decadal SST anomaly in the KOE region was controlled by horizontal Ekman temperature transport in early winter and by vertical entrainment in autumn. The temperature transport by the geostrophic current made only a slight contribution to the seasonal variation of the decadal SST anomaly, despite controlling the upper-ocean thermal conditions on decadal time scales through the slow Rossby wave adjustment to the wind stress curl. When averaging over the entire KOE region, the contribution from the net sea surface heat flux was also no longer significantly detected. By examining the horizontal distributions of the local thermal damping rate, however, it was concluded that the wintertime decadal SST anomaly in the eastern KOE region was rather damped by the net sea surface heat flux. It was due to the fact that the anomalous local thermal damping of the SST anomaly resulting from the vertical entrainment in autumn was considerably strong enough to suppress the anomalous local atmospheric thermal forcing that acted to enhance the decadal SST anomaly.