On February 17, the Global Change Study National Basic Research Program of China launched a new project titled “Response of the Ocean to Global Warming and its impact on East Asian Climate and Marginal Sea Carbon Storage” (ROME in abbreviation) in Qingdao. Officials from Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), Institute of Oceanology of CAS (IOCAS), and scientists from the scientific tracking and steering committees attended the ceremony. Global Change Study National Basic Research Program is the largest scale of scientific funding in China administered by MOST to provide scientific supports to the nation facing the challenge of Global Change.

The project headed by Research Scientist, Dr. Dongliang Yuan, of IOCAS aims at disclosing the dynamic and thermodynamic processes of the Indo-Pacific Ocean circulation and the tropical ocean-atmosphere coupling in response to Global Warming to uncover the impact of the Indo-Pacific change on the climate variations and predictability of the east Asian monsoon and typhoon, and on carbon storage in the northern marginal seas of China.  The key scientific issue of the project is to study the ocean circulation in the “small triangle” area enclosed by Mindanao of the Philippines, western equatorial Pacific, and eastern tropical Indian Ocean to understand the predictability of ENSO dictated by the so-called “Ocean Channel” dynamics in the background of Global Warming.  Recent studies by the team of scientists from China have shown that the “Ocean Channel” dynamics in the “small Triangle” area, i.e. the variations of Indonesian Throughflow, play an important role in linking tropical Indian Ocean Dipole to the Pacific cold tongue sea surface temperature anomalies at the time lag of one year.  One of the main foci of this project is to identify the characters and structure of the “Small Triangle” ocean circulation evolution in the background of Global Warming.

The total funding of the project is 30 million yuan RMB (approximately 4.76 M USD) for the next five years to support the use of high-resolution coupled numerical models of the tropical ocean and atmosphere, intensified field experiments in the western tropical Pacific, and focused ocean observations in the marginal seas.  The project includes four subjects, i.e. 1) Response of the tropical Indo-Pacific ocean to Global Warming; 2) Effects of low latitude warming on east Asian climate; 3) Influence of the tropical Indo-Pacific warming on the climate of typhoon in the western Pacific Ocean; and 4) Carbon storage and its variations in the northern marginal seas of China under Global Warming, which are burdened by IOCAS, Nanjing University, the Typhoon Institute of the China Meteorological Service, and Sun Yetsen University, respectively.

Tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans are the key areas that affect the climates of East Asian monsoon and western Pacific typhoon.  In the meantime, the circulation and ecosystems of the marginal seas of China is subject to the strong forcing of monsoon, typhoon, and the Kuroshio--the western boundary current of the North Pacific subtropical gyre.  It is of great importance for China to understand the dynamic and thermodynamic processes of the Indo-Pacific Ocean circulation and air-sea coupling in response to Global Warming and the associated variations and predictability of East Asian monsoon and typhoon climates and the carbon storage in the northern marginal seas of China.  The results to be disclosed by the research will be of great value to China in its planning for contingent emergencies, adaptation to climate change, and in international negotiations for reduction of greenhouse gas release.