Volume and heat transport in the South China Sea and maritime continent at present and the end of the 21st century

Ocean transports through the Southeast Asian Seas connect the western tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans, thereby exerting an important role in regional and global climate. High-resolution regional ocean model simulations over the South China Sea (SCS) and maritime continent are used to study the me...

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Main Authors: Samanta, Dhrubajyoti, Goodkin, Nathalie Fairbank, Karnauskas, Kristopher B.
Other Authors: Asian School of the Environment
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2021
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/152664
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1526642021-09-25T20:10:57Z Volume and heat transport in the South China Sea and maritime continent at present and the end of the 21st century Samanta, Dhrubajyoti Goodkin, Nathalie Fairbank Karnauskas, Kristopher B. Asian School of the Environment American Museum of Natural History, New York Earth Observatory of Singapore Science::Physics::Meteorology and climatology Engineering::Mathematics and analysis::Simulations South China Sea Maritime Continent Ocean Transport Regional Ocean Modelling System High-resolution Model Intercomparison Project Climate Change Ocean transports through the Southeast Asian Seas connect the western tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans, thereby exerting an important role in regional and global climate. High-resolution regional ocean model simulations over the South China Sea (SCS) and maritime continent are used to study the mean and seasonally varying thermohaline structure and volume transport through the straits surrounding the SCS. Diversity in the vertical structure of these straits is not only indicative of the role of widely varying bathymetry but also strong seasonality associated with monsoonal currents. The presence of a Pacific water mass in intermediate and deep layers of the Luzon Strait points to a key pathway between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Further, examining a suite of global, high-resolution model simulations reveals the projected changes in the regional upper ocean transports due to anthropogenic radiative forcing by the end of the 21st century. The global models predict an increase in heat and volume transport through the Luzon and Karimata Straits, and a decrease thereof through the Makassar and Lombok Straits by the end of the century. Overall, these changes impute additional net convergence of heat and volume in the SCS, a significant reduction of sea surface salinity and mixed layer depth, and an increase in the upper-ocean heat content of the region. As the SCS serves as a regional heat capacitor and is impacted by the global thermohaline circulation locally via Indonesian Throughflow, these predicted changes have the potential to impact climate over the Indo-Pacific region and globally. Ministry of Education (MOE) Published version This is Earth Observatory of Singa-pore contribution number 398. This research was funded by the Singa-pore Ministry of Education (MOE) Academic Research Fund Tier 2 Project MOE2016-T2-1-016 and Earth Observatory of Singapore. It was also partially supported by MOE Tier 3 Pro-ject MOE2019-T3-1-004 funded at Earth Observatory of Singapore. 2021-09-13T01:41:06Z 2021-09-13T01:41:06Z 2021 Journal Article Samanta, D., Goodkin, N. F. & Karnauskas, K. B. (2021). Volume and heat transport in the South China Sea and maritime continent at present and the end of the 21st century. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 126(9), e2020JC016901-. https://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2020JC016901 2169-9291 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/152664 10.1029/2020JC016901 9 126 e2020JC016901 en MOE2016-T2-1-016 MOE2019-T3-1-004 Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans © 2021 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. application/pdf application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Science::Physics::Meteorology and climatology
Engineering::Mathematics and analysis::Simulations
South China Sea
Maritime Continent
Ocean Transport
Regional Ocean Modelling System
High-resolution Model Intercomparison Project
Climate Change
spellingShingle Science::Physics::Meteorology and climatology
Engineering::Mathematics and analysis::Simulations
South China Sea
Maritime Continent
Ocean Transport
Regional Ocean Modelling System
High-resolution Model Intercomparison Project
Climate Change
Samanta, Dhrubajyoti
Goodkin, Nathalie Fairbank
Karnauskas, Kristopher B.
Volume and heat transport in the South China Sea and maritime continent at present and the end of the 21st century
description Ocean transports through the Southeast Asian Seas connect the western tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans, thereby exerting an important role in regional and global climate. High-resolution regional ocean model simulations over the South China Sea (SCS) and maritime continent are used to study the mean and seasonally varying thermohaline structure and volume transport through the straits surrounding the SCS. Diversity in the vertical structure of these straits is not only indicative of the role of widely varying bathymetry but also strong seasonality associated with monsoonal currents. The presence of a Pacific water mass in intermediate and deep layers of the Luzon Strait points to a key pathway between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Further, examining a suite of global, high-resolution model simulations reveals the projected changes in the regional upper ocean transports due to anthropogenic radiative forcing by the end of the 21st century. The global models predict an increase in heat and volume transport through the Luzon and Karimata Straits, and a decrease thereof through the Makassar and Lombok Straits by the end of the century. Overall, these changes impute additional net convergence of heat and volume in the SCS, a significant reduction of sea surface salinity and mixed layer depth, and an increase in the upper-ocean heat content of the region. As the SCS serves as a regional heat capacitor and is impacted by the global thermohaline circulation locally via Indonesian Throughflow, these predicted changes have the potential to impact climate over the Indo-Pacific region and globally.
author2 Asian School of the Environment
author_facet Asian School of the Environment
Samanta, Dhrubajyoti
Goodkin, Nathalie Fairbank
Karnauskas, Kristopher B.
format Article
author Samanta, Dhrubajyoti
Goodkin, Nathalie Fairbank
Karnauskas, Kristopher B.
author_sort Samanta, Dhrubajyoti
title Volume and heat transport in the South China Sea and maritime continent at present and the end of the 21st century
title_short Volume and heat transport in the South China Sea and maritime continent at present and the end of the 21st century
title_full Volume and heat transport in the South China Sea and maritime continent at present and the end of the 21st century
title_fullStr Volume and heat transport in the South China Sea and maritime continent at present and the end of the 21st century
title_full_unstemmed Volume and heat transport in the South China Sea and maritime continent at present and the end of the 21st century
title_sort volume and heat transport in the south china sea and maritime continent at present and the end of the 21st century
publishDate 2021
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/152664
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