Surface warming reacceleration in offshore China and its interdecadal effects on the East Asia–Pacific climate

Since the late 1970s, sea surface temperatures (SSTs) have exhibited greater responses to global warming in the offshore area of China and adjacent seas (offshore China) than in the global ocean. This study identified a surface warming reacceleration in offshore China since 2011, following a well-known interdecadal shift from offshore surface warming to cooling in 1998. During the warming reacceleration period, the rate of increase in offshore China SSTs was twice the mean rate of global ocean surface warming, and the significantly warming area was primarily in the north, especially in the East China Sea. Concurrent with the ascending phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, a large area of positive sea level pressure anomalies developed over the tropical Pacific. Accordingly, the surface southerly wind anomalies contributed to the recent surface warming in offshore China, especially in the East China Sea. With greater changes in the warming rate, the spatial mode of the circulation anomalies over East Asia and the western Pacific has shifted westward and has exerted more inshore influence during the recent warming reacceleration period than during the previous periods.