Open AccessTwo major modes of East Asian marine heatwaves
Author(s) -
Seonju Lee,
MyungSook Park,
Min Serk Kwon,
Young Ho Kim,
Young-Gyu Park
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
environmental research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.37
H-Index - 124
ISSN - 1748-9326
DOI - 10.1088/1748-9326/ab8527
Subject(s) - subtropics , climatology , east asia , subtropical ridge , sea surface temperature , forcing (mathematics) , middle latitudes , latitude , geology , oceanography , environmental science , geography , meteorology , china , precipitation , archaeology , geodesy , fishery , biology
We show two major modes of East Asian marine heatwaves (MHWs) associated with two contrasting sea surface temperature patterns over the subtropical western North Pacific (WNP). In the first MHW mode, ocean warming over East Asia occurs along with the subtropical WNP from the earlier winter by an El Niño-Southern Oscillation. The basin-wide ocean warming is finally intensified to an extreme warming state around East Asia, where a high-pressure region in zonal waves across the Eurasian continent passes. In contrast, at the early stage, the second MHW mode is unfavorable with ocean cooling. However, MHWs over East Asia occur due to a significant intensification of a zonally elongated high-pressure zone in response to anomalous subtropical convection in addition to mid-latitude zonal waves. Due to the importance of persistent ocean warming as well as immediate atmospheric forcing, MHW inducible oceanic and atmospheric interactions are clearly distinguishable from those of atmospheric heatwaves.