Roles of tropical remote forcings on the South China Sea winter atmospheric and cold tongue variabilities

Influences from the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans, and atmospheric internal variability on the South China Sea (SCS) atmospheric circulation and cold tongue (CT) variability in boreal winter and the relative roles of remote forcings at interannual time scales are studied using observational data, reanalysis products, and coupled model experiments. In the observation, strong CT years are accompanied by local cyclonic wind anomalies, which are an equatorial Rossby wave response to enhanced convection over the warmer-than-normal western equatorial Pacific associated with La Niña. Also, the cyclonic wind anomalies are an atmospheric Kelvin wave response to diabatic cooling anomalies linked to both the decaying late fall negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and winter atmospheric internal variability. Partially coupled experiments reveal that both the tropical Pacific air-sea coupling and atmospheric internal variability positively contribute to the coupled variability of the SCS CT, while the air-sea coupling over the tropical Indian Ocean weakens such variabilities. The northwest Pacific anticyclonic wind anomalies that usually precede El Niño–Southern Oscillation-independent negative IOD generated under the tropical Indian Ocean air-sea coupling undermine such variabilities.