Responses Of Wave Climate In The East China Sea To Local Climate Variations

Studies of wave climate are important to interpret the internal physical mechanisms of global climate variations and are also helpful to explain the changes of human beings'living environments.Present study used the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) 40-year reanalysis products (1977-2002) to derive the sea surface wind field. By using the 4 times per day weather data, we can drive the third generation wave model WAVEWATCH-III v2.22 to retrieve the recent 45 year wave climate in the western North Pacific.The model retrieved wave climate had been compared with Japan Meteorological Agency B22001 buoy observed data and U.S. TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite altimeter measured wave height. Present retrieved wave climate is suitable to use to analyze the wave climate in the East China Sea.Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis helped us to extract the spatial and temporal variation of extreme wave height distributions in the East China Sea. By comparison with"early year"and"later year", decreases in extreme wave height in the northern East China Sea (Yellow Sea) correspond to attenuation of the East Asian Summer Monsoon, while increases in the south are primarily due to enhancement of tropical cyclone activities in the western North Pacific.By comparison with previous achievements, the intensification of tropical cyclones in the western North Pacific is identified as a reality. Such variation can influence the middle and southern part of the East China Sea, while the changes of East Asian Monsoon Circulation mentioned us that the energy transportation maybe another important aspect to clarify the internal mechanisms of global climate variations.