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Local phase relationship between sea surface temperature and net heat flux over weekly to annual periods in the extratropical North Pacific

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Abstract

The relationship between sea surface temperature (SST) and net heat flux (NHF) in the North Pacific over weekly to annual period bands was investigated using gridded datasets of SST obtained by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observing System, and flux data produced by the Modern-era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications Reanalysis. This study focused on the phase difference between the SST and NHF, which can suggest the driving force between two co-varying parameters. The SST delay behind the NHF, with phase differences from π/4 to π/2, which suggests that the SST change would be controlled by the NHF, was commonly found over all periods. In the intra-annual (100- to 200-day periods) band, part of the coherent variations showed negative phase differences (around −π to −π/3), which were found in the western North Pacific and along ∼30°N in the central North Pacific. The spatial scales of SST variability in the shorter band (weekly to intraseasonal: less than 100-day periods) are dominantly over 200 km. In contrast, the scales in the intra-annual band were in the range 50–150 km, where the negative phase differences were frequently found.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to express gratitude to members of physical oceanographic and satellite oceanographic groups in Tohoku University for their helpful comments and advices. Two anonymous reviewers gave valuable comments and suggestions to significantly improve this manuscript. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Earth Observation Research Center (EORC) is thanked for providing AMSR-E SST data. The Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) and the GES DISC are thanked for for the dissemination of MERRA heat flux data.

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  1. Center for Atmospheric and Oceanic Studies, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University, 6-3 Aramaki aza Aoba, Aoba, Sendai, 980-8578, Japan

    Kohtaro Hosoda

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Appendix: Difference between Reynolds OISST and AMSR-E un-filtered SST

Appendix: Difference between Reynolds OISST and AMSR-E un-filtered SST

The MERRA used weekly- and 1°-resolution OISST product of Reynolds et al. (2002) for boundary condition of the ocean surface. It is suggested that the low resolution with optimal interpolation using large de-correlation scales would blur mesoscale structures of ocean surface. Figure 10 shows the spatial distributions of root-mean-square difference (RMSD) between Reynolds OISST and AMSR-E SST. The SST differences were calculated using data from January 1, 2003 to December 31, 2010. The 3-day running mean were adopted for AMSR-E SST to fulfill the gaps in the dataset. Two Reynolds OISST datasets were compared with the AMSR-E SST: (1) the previous version Reynolds OISST (RSST02; Reynolds et al. 2002, weekly, 1° resolution), which was used for boundary condition in MERRA, and (2) the latest version Reynolds OISST based on blended AVHRR and AMSR-E (RSST07; Reynolds et al. 2007, daily, 0.25° resolution). For RSST02, nearest-neighbor method was adopted for interpolating low-resolution SST data into AMSR-E grid (daily, 0.25°) before comparison. Large differences between RSST02 and AMSR-E SST, which were up to 2.0°C, were found in the western North Pacific, especially at the northern side of the SST fronts (the Kuroshio in the eastern China Sea, subarctic front in the Japan Sea, and Kuroshio/Oyashio Mixed Water Region). Even if the monthly averaging without spatial smoothing was adopted for both RSST02 and AMSR-E SST datasets, these SST differences in the western North Pacific were reduced by only 0.2–0.4°C (figure not shown). Therefore, it is suggested that the difference would be due to low spatial resolution in RSST02, which might affect the estimation of flux variability even in low-frequency bands.

Fig. 10
figure 10

Root-Mean-Square Difference (RMSD: Unit °C) between Reynolds OISST data and AMSR-E 3-day mean SST. a Reynolds weekly AVHRR-only OISST (Reynolds et al. 2002), b Reynolds daily AVHRR+AMSR-E blended OISST (Reynolds et al. 2007)

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In the comparison between RSST07 and AMSR-E SST, these differences were reduced to 1.0°C or less. It could be expected that the atmospheric reanalysis products using the AMSR-E and AVHRR blended RSST07 would improve their estimation of ocean surface fluxes in the near future.

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Hosoda, K. Local phase relationship between sea surface temperature and net heat flux over weekly to annual periods in the extratropical North Pacific. J Oceanogr 68, 671–685 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10872-012-0127-7

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