INTERANNUAL VARIATION IN HEAT CONTENT OF THE WESTERN PACIFIC WARM POOL AND ITS EFFECT ON EASTERN ASIAN CLIMATE ANOMALIES

Using the 1980-2010 winter GODAS oceanic assimilations, study is conducted of the winter heat content(HC) established in the subsurface layer(5 to 366 m in depth) over the western Pacific warm pool(WP), followed by investigating the HC spatiotemporal characteristics, persistence and the impacts on the climate anomalies of neighboring regions. Results are as follows: 1) the pattern of integral consistency is uncovered by the leading EOF1(PC1) mode of HC interannual variability, the year-to-year fluctuation of the time coefficients being well indicative of the interannual anomaly of the WP winter subsurface-layer thermal regime. The HC variation is bound up with El Ni觡o-Southern Oscillation, keeping pronounced autocorrelation during the following two seasons and more, with the persistence being more stable in comparison to sea surface temperature anomaly in the equatorial middle eastern Pacific; 2) the winter HC anomalies produce lasting effect on the WP thermal state in the following spring and summer and corresponding changes in the warm water volume lead to the meridional transport and vertical exchange of warm water, which exerts greater impacts upon the sea surface temperature/heat flux over the warm pool per se and neighboring regions, especially in the Philippine Sea during the posterior spring and summer; 3) the increase in the winter HC corresponds to the spring outgoing longwave radiation(OLR) decrease and richer precipitation over the waters east to the Philippine Sea and the resultant convective heating anomalies are responsible for the rise of geopotential isobaric surfaces over tropical and subtropical western North Pacific, thereby producing effect on the western Pacific subtropical high(anomaly). Subsequently, the sea-surface heat flux exchange is intensified in the warm pool, a robust anomalous cyclone shows up at lower levels, air-sea interactions are enhanced and abnormal convective heating occurs, together making the winter HC anomalies even more closely associated with the variation in the summer subtropical high. As a result, the WP winter HC can be used as an effective predictor of the variation in spring/summer western Pacific subtropical high and the strength of summer monsoon over the northwestern Pacific.