Surface Heat Flux Induced by Mesoscale Eddies Cools the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension Region uri icon

abstract

  • AbstractSea surface temperature (SST) is a key player in the airsea interaction, influencing storm tracks, atmospheric circulation, and climate modes. Although prevailing theories attribute variations of largescale SST to atmosphere forcing and ocean internal dynamics, we find that sea surface heat flux anomalies induced by mesoscale eddies exert significant influences on the upperocean heat budget in the KuroshioOyashio extension region. Despite making nearly no contribution to the net heat exchange at the airsea interface, the eddyinduced heat flux anomalies weaken the thermal stratification in the upper ocean and result in pronounced sea surface cooling. The underlying dynamics is the efficient dissipation of eddy potential energy by eddyinduced heat flux anomalies. This makes the conversion of eddy potential energy to eddy kinetic energy significantly reduced, corresponding to a weaker eddyinduced restratification flux. The finding complements the existing theories on largescale SST dynamics and has important implications for understanding extratropical climate variability.

published proceedings

  • GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS

author list (cited authors)

  • Shan, X., Jing, Z., Gan, B., Wu, L., Chang, P., Ma, X., ... Yang, H.

complete list of authors

  • Shan, Xuan||Jing, Zhao||Gan, Bolan||Wu, Lixin||Chang, Ping||Ma, Xiaohui||Wang, Shengpeng||Chen, Zhaohui||Yang, Haiyuan