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Climate-driven chlorophyll-a concentration interannual variability in the South China Sea

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Abstract

Physical forcing and biological response are highly variable over a wide range of scales in the South China Sea. The present paper analyzed interannual variability of the surface chlorophyll-a concentration of the South China Sea using NASA standard SeaWiFS monthly products from 1997 to 2007. Time series of monthly data were first smoothed using a 12-month running mean filter. An empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis was performed to evaluate the interannual variability. The first EOF mode is characterized by a higher surface chlorophyll-a concentration in the deep basin of the South China Sea with a maximum value southwest of Luzon Strait. The corresponding time coefficient function is highly correlated with the multivariate ENSO index (MEI). The correlation coefficient is −0.61 when the time coefficient function lags the MEI by 9 months. The second EOF mode is characterized by a northwest lower chlorophyll-a concentration. The corresponding time coefficient function correlates with the MEI at a correlation coefficient equal to 0.88, with a lag of 1 month. The third EOF mode shows the interannual variability of the chlorophyll-a concentration has some relationship with Indian Ocean dipole mode as well. The link between the climate and ocean biological states in the South China Sea is due to changes in upper-ocean temperature and wind field, which influence the availability of nutrients for phytoplankton growth.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program; 2009CB723903), National Natural Science Foundation of China (40676096), and 863-Project (2009AA12Z102-10). We thank OBPG of the GSFC, NASA for providing SeaWiFS chlorophyll-a products, Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Centre (PODAAC) at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory for providing AVHRR SST data, and CERSAT at the Ifremer for providing the QuikSCAT products. Thanks to Kelly Hille who helped us edit the manuscript. We also thank three anonymous reviewers for their thorough reviews and constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Digital Earth, Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Shilin Tang & Qing Dong

  2. Freshwater Institute, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N6, Canada

    Shilin Tang

  3. LED, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, China

    Fenfen Liu

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  1. Shilin Tang
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  2. Qing Dong
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Correspondence to Shilin Tang.

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Tang, S., Dong, Q. & Liu, F. Climate-driven chlorophyll-a concentration interannual variability in the South China Sea. Theor Appl Climatol 103, 229–237 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-010-0295-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-010-0295-6

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