OBSERVATIONAL STUDY OF AIR-SEA FLUXES DURING THE SCS SUMMER MONSOON IN 2000——FEATURES OF THERMAL BUDGET AT THE SEA SURFACE^*

This paper is devoted to the features of sea-surface heat budget during the active/break phases of the 2000 summer monsoon in the South-China Sea(SCS) by means of the observed air-sea heat fluxes and data from Xisha Weather Station and NCEP/NCAR in the same period.Results suggest that the primary factors affecting sea-surface thermal budget are solar shortwave penetrating radiation and latent heat flux.Regardless of their changes,however,the thermal gain is reduced or becomes net loss at the active stage and the thermal gain gets gradually increased in the weakening and lull periods:during the first emergence of southwest monsoon the net loss happens thanks to the dramatic diminution of penetrating radiation resulting from increased cloudiness and intense precipitation:while at the re-emergence of the wind.reduced net sea-surface thermal gain is attributed to the sharp increase in latent heat flux resulting from intense evaporation:owing to great thermal inertia of water the SST change lags behind that of heat budget over the sea surface, and the lagging is responsible for regulating the budget by affecting latent heat fluxes,which,in turn.has effect upon the change of the SST,thereby forming short-term oscillations that are in association with the active/break phases of the monsoons.Part of the conclusions have been borne out by the observational study based on 1998 and 2002 data.