Abstract
The trends in latent and sensible heat fluxes (LHF and SHF) over the oceans surrounding the Arctic Ocean and the contributions of the Arctic Oscillation, the Arctic dipole anomaly, the third principal component, and the Pacific-North American pattern on them are investigated using the objectively analyzed air-sea fluxes (OAFlux) dataset from 1979 to 2008. Significant positive trends in LHF appear over western and northern European coasts and the coast of the Aleutian Islands, especially in autumn. Besides in summer, autumn and winter positive trends in LHF also exist over the coast of the western North Pacific Ocean; in summer, there is also a patch of positive trends over the central North Atlantic Ocean. On the contrary, negative trends in LHF change greatly in a year. There are main negative trend centers over the Barents Sea, the coast of northeast Canada, the Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, and Hudson Bay, especially in summer and autumn. Trends in SHF are similar to those in LHF except for a small difference in area. There are significant correlations between the four indices and both LHF and SHF over these oceanic regions which result mainly from strong relationships between the sea–air-specific humidity and temperature differences and the four indices. The four indices only explain a small portion of the trends in LHF and SHF. The trends in air–sea-specific humidity and temperature differences are more closely associated with those in LHF and SHF than those in wind speed.
Highlights
Latent and sensible heat fluxes (LHF and SHF) at the ocean surface are the dominant mechanism for transferring heat from ocean to atmosphere, and their importance to the general circulation of the atmosphere has long been recognized
In spring [Fig. 1(a)], LHF over the northern Pacific regions has a positive trend over the coast of the Gulf of Alaska and a negative trend offshore of the Kamchatka Peninsula; over the northern Atlantic regions, we see a positive trend over the Norwegian Sea and the North Sea, and a negative trend over the regions south of Greenland and northeast of Iceland
In summer [Fig. 1(b)] over the northern Pacific regions, a significant positive trend occurs over the Sea of Okhotsk, but the area of positive trend over the Gulf of Alaska decreases
Summary
Latent and sensible heat fluxes (LHF and SHF) at the ocean surface are the dominant mechanism for transferring heat from ocean to atmosphere, and their importance to the general circulation of the atmosphere has long been recognized. The Arctic sea ice and sea surface temperature (SST) have apparently changed.[1,2] Gill and Niiler[3] revealed that over large scales, surface temperature changes are dominated by changes in surface heat fluxes including LHF and SHF, in comparison with advective influences. The roles of both LHF and SHF in the changes of the Arctic sea ice and SST need to be investigated.
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