Two major modes of East Asian marine heatwaves

Abstract

We show two major modes of East Asian marine heatwaves (MHWs) associated with two contrasting sea surface temperature patterns over the subtropical western North Pacific (WNP). In the first MHW mode, ocean warming over East Asia occurs along with the subtropical WNP from the earlier winter by an El Nino-Southern Oscillation. The basin-wide ocean warming is finally intensified to an extreme warming state around East Asia, where a high-pressure region in zonal waves across the Eurasian continent passes. In contrast, at the early stage, the second MHW mode is unfavorable with ocean cooling. However, MHWs over East Asia occur due to a significant intensification of a zonally elongated high-pressure zone in response to anomalous subtropical convection in addition to mid-latitude zonal waves. Due to the importance of persistent ocean warming as well as immediate atmospheric forcing, MHW inducible oceanic and atmospheric interactions are clearly distinguishable from those of atmospheric heatwaves.