Recent warming in the Yellow/East China Sea during winter and the associated atmospheric circulation

We examine characteristics in the variability of sea surface temperature (SST) in the Yellow/East China Sea during the boreal winter (December-January-February) for the period 1950-2008 in observations. It is found that the mean SST in the Yellow Sea/East China Sea gradually increases during recent decades. A warming trend of a basin scale SST is significant in most of the regions in the Yellow/East Sea, which is well explained by the variability of the first empirical orthogonal function SST mode. We suggest one candidate mechanism that the North Pacific oscillation (NPO)-like sea level pressure play an important role to warm the Yellow/East China Sea. Anomalous anticyclonic circulation, which is the southern lobe of NPO-like sea level pressure over the North Pacific, causes a weakening of northerly mean winds over the Yellow/East China Sea during winter. This contributes to increase in the SST in the Yellow/East China Sea through the changes in the latent heat and sensible heat fluxes. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.SWY was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (MEST) (NRF-2009-C1AAA001-2009-0093042). C.-H. Kim is supported by the research programs MLTM (PM55670) and KORDI (PE98445)