Abstract
This study investigates the winter-to-winter recurrence (WWR) of sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) in the Bay of Bengal (BOB) and its causes. During 1948–2016, 36% years show WWRs, which occurred over the BOB north of 13° N. The WWR of net surface heat flux (Qnet), especially the latent heat flux (Qlat) associated with change of winter monsoon wind speed, is essential for all the SSTA WWR events. The interdecadal wintertime warming (cooling) of BOB SST before (after) 1976, which is induced by the weakened (enhanced) monsoon wind and latent heat flux associated with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) and decadal variability of the Indian Ocean, are the causes for the observed interdecadal variability of warm (cold) SSTA WWR. However, nearly half (48%) of the WWR events are significantly contributed from the subsurface processes, which is equivalent to ~ 26% (42%) contribution to Qnet for the warm (cold) SSTA WWR events. Different from the mid-latitude subsurface re-emergence mechanism that depends critically on wintertime mixed layer deepening, the BOB subsurface effects on WWR of SSTA are associated with shoaling/deepening thermocline, forced remotely by winds along the equator and Ekman pumping within the BOB.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Dr. Weiqing Han from University of Colorado Boulder for helpful comments and suggestions. This work is supported by the Scientific Research Foundation of Third Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources (2018001 and 2018030), the Ministry of Natural Resources Program on Global Change and Air-Sea interactions (GASI-IPOVAI-02 and GASI-IPOVAI-03), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFC1401003 and 2016YFC1402607), and the China Scholarship Council Foundation (201604180033).
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Qiu, Y., Lin, X. & Jing, C. Recurrence of wintertime SST anomalies in the Bay of Bengal: characteristics and causes. Clim Dyn 57, 73–92 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-05693-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-05693-0