Interdecadal Difference of Interannual Variability Characteristics of South China Sea SSTs Associated with ENSO

The correlation between sea surface temperature (SST) and El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) persists into post-ENSO September over the South China Sea (SCS), the longest correlation in the World Ocean. Slow modulations of this correlation are analyzed by using the International Comprehensive Ocean–Atmosphere Dataset (ICOADS). ENSO’s influence on SCS SST has experienced significant interdecadal changes over the past 138 years (1870–2007), with a double-peak structure correlation after the 1960s compared to a single-peak before the 1940s. According to the ENSO correlation character, the analysis period is divided into four epochs. In epoch 3, 1960–83, the SST warming and enhanced precipitation over the southeastern tropical Indian Ocean, rather than the Indian Ocean basinwide warming, induce easterly wind anomalies and warm up the SCS in the summer following El Nino. Besides the Indian Ocean effect, during epochs 2 (1930–40) and 4 (1984–2007), the Pacific–Japan (PJ) pattern of atmospheric circulat...