Anomalous pattern of ocean heat content during different phases of the solar cycle in the tropical Pacific

Abstract

Solar radiation is a forcing of the climate system with a quasi-11-year period. As a quasi-period forcing, the influence of the phase of the solar cycle on the ocean system is an interesting topic of study. In this paper, the authors investigate a particular feature, the ocean heat content (OHC) anomaly, in different phases of the total solar irradiance (TSI) cycle. The results show that almost opposite spatial patterns appear in the tropical Pacific during the ascending and declining phases of the TSI cycle. Further analysis reveals the presence of the quasi-decadal (~11-year) solar signal in the SST, OHC and surface zonal wind anomaly field over the tropical Pacific with a high level of statistical confidence (>95%). It is noted that the maximum centers of the ocean temperature anomaly are trapped in the upper ocean above the main pycnocline, in which the variations of OHC are related closely with zonal wind and ocean currents.

Keywords

• Ocean heat content anomaly
• total solar irradiance
• solar cycle
• tropical Pacific