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Annual sea surface temperature lag as an indicator of regional climate variability

The annual SST lag for the world ocean is obtained from a Fourier analysis of the HadISST (1870–2008) and NOAA WOA05 (1900–2005) monthly SST data series. The main properties are a mean of 73 days and a standard deviation of 16 days, with tongues of high SST lag extending poleward and eastward from the equatorial regions where a maximum in lag of about 110 days occurs. The SST lag is the sum of an atmospheric surface heat flux lag and an ocean heat storage lag which is the dominant contributor and provides direct estimates of the damping time for air/sea heat exchange, which are in good agreement with observations in the eastern North Atlantic Ocean, and also predictions of the phase lag of the mid‐latitude ocean surface temperature field to El Nino‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) forcing. Hence, SST lag can be used to diagnose global climate variability. Local differences in lag of up to about 15 days occur between the 1991–2005 and 1976–1990 periods, which are accompanied by significant changes in regional climate. The lag time series for grid points in the eastern Indian Ocean, North Pacific Ocean and North Atlantic Ocean show that the variability can be interpreted in terms of bounded random walks of length about 20 years. The CSIRO Mk. 3.5 run for Scenario A2 over the period 1871–2100 has a similar random structure and also shows a secular increase in SST lag in the temperate oceans which is attributable to an expansion of the tropical belt.