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Influence of sea surface temperature on the intraseasonal variability of the South China Sea summer monsoon

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Abstract

The objective of this study is to examine, based on recently available high resolution satellite and observational data, the evolution and role of sea surface temperature (SST) in influencing the intraseasonal variability of the South China Sea (SCS) summer monsoon (SM). The study focuses on the 30–60 day timescale when the northward propagating anomalies are dominant over the SCS. Composite analysis of the SST maximum events during SCS SM shows that increased SST anomalies over the SCS are significantly influenced by the downward shortwave radiation flux anomalies, with the suppressed surface latent heat flux anomalies supplementing to it. A thermal damping of the positive SST anomalies induces positive upward heat fluxes, which then destabilize the lower atmosphere between 1,000 and 700 hPa. The positive SST anomalies lead the positive precipitation anomalies over the SCS by 10 days, with a significant correlation (r = 0.44) between the SST-precipitation anomalies. The new findings here indicate an ocean-to-atmosphere effect over the SCS, where underlying SST anomalies tend to form a favorable condition for convective activity and sustain enhanced precipitation during the SCS SM. It is also argued, based on our observations, that the negative sea level pressure anomalies induced by the positive SST anomalies play a role in enhancing the northward propagation of the intraseasonal anomalies over the SCS.

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Acknowledgments

Constructive suggestions and comments from two anonymous reviewers have helped in improving the manuscript. NASA/GSFC is thankfully acknowledged for TMI/QuickScat satellite data. The latent heat flux data is obtained from the WHOI OAFlux Project and the downward shortwave radiation flux data from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP). The authors are thankful to the Centre for Climate Change Research at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, India, for facilitating the study. This work was supported in part by the Global Environment Research Fund (S-5) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan, Grand-In-Aid for Scientific Research defrayed by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (22340132, 22340135, 22106007).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Climate Change Research, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, 411008, India

    Mathew Roxy

  2. Faculty of Environmental Earth Science and Graduate School of Environmental Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

    Mathew Roxy & Youichi Tanimoto

  3. Research Institute for Global Change, JAMSTEC, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan

    Youichi Tanimoto

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  1. Mathew Roxy
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  2. Youichi Tanimoto
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Correspondence to Mathew Roxy.

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This paper is a contribution to the special issue on Global Monsoon Climate, a product of the Global Monsoon Working Group of the Past Global Changes (PAGES) project, coordinated by Pinxian Wang, Bin Wang, and Thorsten Kiefer.

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Roxy, M., Tanimoto, Y. Influence of sea surface temperature on the intraseasonal variability of the South China Sea summer monsoon. Clim Dyn 39, 1209–1218 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-011-1118-x

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