ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Coastal Ocean Processes
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1671389
This article is part of the Research TopicApplication of Remote Sensing in Coastal Oceanic Processes Volume IIView all 7 articles
Formation of record-breaking 2015/2016 winter marine heatwave in the northwest South China Sea
Provisionally accepted
- 1CNOOC Research Institute Company Limited, Beijing, China
- 2Second Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Hangzhou, China
- 3Hohai University College of Oceanography, Nanjing, China
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The South China Sea (SCS) is undergoing multiple marine heatwaves (MHWs) over the past few decades. Daily reanalyzed sea surface temperature (SST) data is applied to identify major MHWs in the northwest of SCS over 1982–2021. The MHWs have increased in frequency, intensity and spatial extent, but the strongest MHWs occurring in winter of 2015/2016 cannot be fully explained. In-situ observations revealed a strong dependence of the formation of MHW with interannual variability, i.e., the El Niño. Prominent difference in SST was identified in winters between the El Niño (2015/2016) and a normal year (2016/2017), as well as marine dynamical processes in wind and current. Due to the teleconnections of extreme El Niño, the weakened monsoon wind led to reduced basin-scale wind field anomalies and vertical currents, acting as pre-conditioning for extreme MHW events. Additionally, local oceanographic dynamics, especially upper ocean circulation and mesoscale eddies, play an important role in different MHWs during their formation and intensification, by driving horizonal currents and advection. In particular, the northward flow from tropics is favorable for the generation of MHWs. The in-situ observations offer a comprehensive insight on the formation of extreme MHWs in the South China Sea.
Keywords: Marine heatwave, South China Sea, El Niño, In-situ measurement, eddy
Received: 23 Jul 2025; Accepted: 16 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xie, Sun, Tao, Weifang, Lin, Meng and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jin Weifang, jinweif@sio.org.cn
Yuntao Wang, yuntao.wang@sio.org.cn
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