Verification of an operational ocean circulation-surface wave coupled forecasting system for the China＇s seas

An operational ocean circulation-surface wave coupled forecasting system for the seas off China and adjacent areas（OCFS-C） is developed based on parallelized circulation and wave models. It has been in operation since November 1, 2007. In this paper we comprehensively present the simulation and verification of the system, whose distinguishing feature is that the wave-induced mixing is coupled in the circulation model. In particular, with nested technique the resolution in the China＇s seas has been updated to（1/24）° from the global model with（1/2）°resolution. Besides, daily remote sensing sea surface temperature（SST） data have been assimilated into the model to generate a hot restart field for OCFS-C. Moreover, inter-comparisons between forecasting and independent observational data are performed to evaluate the effectiveness of OCFS-C in upper-ocean quantities predictions, including SST, mixed layer depth（MLD） and subsurface temperature. Except in conventional statistical metrics, non-dimensional skill scores（SS） is also used to evaluate forecast skill. Observations from buoys and Argo profiles are used for lead time and real time validations, which give a large SS value（more than 0.90）. Besides, prediction skill for the seasonal variation of SST is confirmed. Comparisons of subsurface temperatures with Argo profiles data indicate that OCFS-C has low skill in predicting subsurface temperatures between 100 m and 150 m. Nevertheless, inter-comparisons of MLD reveal that the MLD from model is shallower than that from Argo profiles by about 12 m, i.e., OCFS-C is successful and steady in MLD predictions. Validation of 1-d, 2-d and 3-d forecasting SST shows that our operational ocean circulation-surface wave coupled forecasting model has reasonable accuracy in the upper ocean.

CLIMATIC FEATURES OF SEA TEMPERATURE OF WARM POOL AND RELATIONSHIP WITH SST OF ITS ADJACENT REGIONS

In this paper,climatic features of sea temperature of western Pacific warm pool and the relationship with sea surface temperature (SST) of its adjacent regions are analyzed based on the observed sea temperature on vertical cross section along 137°E in western Pacific,the monthly mean SST of Xisha Station in South China Sea and the global monthly mean SST with resolution of 1°×1°(U.K./GISST2.2).The results indicate that (1) in a sense of correlation.SST of western Pacific warm pool can represent its sea subsurface temperature from surface to 200 m-depth level in winter,and it can only represent sea temperature from surface to 70 m depth in summer.The sea subsurface temperature anomaly of warm pool may be more suitable for representing thermal regime of western Pacific warm pool.The sea subsurface temperature of warm pool has a characteristic of quasi-biennial oscillation.(2)Warm pool and Kuroshio current are subject to different ocean current systems (3)Furthermore,the relationship between SST of Xisha Station and SST of warm pool has a characteristic of negative correlation in winter and positive correlation in summer,and a better lag negative correlation of SST of Xisha Station with sea subsurface temperature of warm pool exists.(4)Additionally,oscillation structure of sea temperature like “a seesaw” exists in between warm pool and Regions Nino3 and Nino4.January (June) maximum (minimum) sea subsurface temperature anomaly of warm pool may serve as a strong signal that indicates maturity phase (development phase) of La Nina (El Nino) event,it also acts as a strong signal which reveals variations of SST of Regions Nino3 and Nino4.