Timely and accurate forecasts of tropical cyclones (TCs, i.e., hurricanes and typhoons) are of great importance for risk mitigation. Although in the past two decades there has been steady improvement in track prediction, improvement on intensity prediction is still highly challenging. Cooling of the upper ocean by TC‐induced mixing is an important process that impacts TC intensity. Based on detail in situ air‐deployed ocean and atmospheric measurement pairs collected during the Impact of Typhoons on the Ocean in the Pacific (ITOP) field campaign, we modify the widely used Sea Surface Temperature Potential Intensity (SST_PI) index by including information from the subsurface ocean temperature profile to form a new Ocean coupling Potential Intensity (OC_PI) index. Using OC_PI as a TC maximum intensity predictor and applied to a 14 year (1998–2011) western North Pacific TC archive, OC_PI reduces SST_PI‐based overestimation of archived maximum intensity by more than 50% and increases the correlation of maximum intensity estimation from r² = 0.08 to 0.31. For slow‐moving TCs that cause the greatest cooling, r² increases to 0.56 and the root‐mean square error in maximum intensity is 11 m s⁻¹. As OC_PI can more realistically characterize the ocean contribution to TC intensity, it thus serves as an effective new index to improve estimation and prediction of TC maximum intensity.

With the extra‐ordinary intensity of 170 kts, supertyphoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines in November 2013. This intensity is among the highest ever observed for tropical cyclones (TCs) globally, 35 kts well above the threshold (135kts) of the existing highest category of 5. Though there is speculation to associate global warming with such intensity, existing research indicate that we have been in a warming hiatus period, with the hiatus attributed to the La Niña‐like multi‐decadal phenomenon. It is thus intriguing to understand why Haiyan can occur during hiatus. It is suggested that as the western Pacific manifestation of the La Niña‐like phenomenon is to pile up warm subsurface water to the west, the western North Pacific experienced evident subsurface warming and created a very favorable ocean pre‐condition for Haiyan. Together with its fast traveling speed, the air‐sea flux supply was 158% as compared to normal for intensification.

The thermocline shoals in the South China Sea (SCS) relative to the tropical northwest Pacific Ocean (NWP), as required by geostrophic balance with the Kuroshio. The present study examines the effect of this difference in ocean state on the response of sea surface temperature (SST) and chlorophyll concentration to tropical cyclones (TCs), using both satellite-derived measurements and three-dimensional numerical simulations. In both regions, TC-produced SST cooling strongly depends on TC characteristics (including intensity as measured by the maximum surface wind speed, translation speed, and size). When subject to identical TC forcing, the SST cooling in the SCS is more than 1.5 times that in the NWP, which may partially explain weaker TC intensity on average observed in the SCS. Both a shallower mixed layer and stronger subsurface thermal stratification in the SCS contribute to this regional difference in SST cooling. The mixed layer effect dominates when TCs are weak, fast-moving, and/or small; and for strong and slow-moving TCs or strong and large TCs, both factors are equally important. In both regions, TCs tend to elevate surface chlorophyll concentration. For identical TC forcing, the surface chlorophyll increase in the SCS is around 10 times that in the NWP, a difference much stronger than that in SST cooling. This large regional difference in the surface chlorophyll response is at least partially due to a shallower nutricline and stronger vertical nutrient gradient in the SCS. The effect of regional difference in upper-ocean density stratification on the surface nutrient response is negligible. The total annual primary production increase associated with the TC passage estimated using the vertically generalized production model in the SCS is nearly 3 times that in the NWP (i.e., 6.4 ± 0.4 × 1012 versus 2.2 ± 0.2 × 1012 g C), despite the weaker TC activity in the SCS.

In May 2003, a phytoplankton bloom of chlorophyll‐a (Chl‐a) concentration of 0.3–0.4 mgm⁻³ was observed at the centre of northern South China Sea (SCS) by NASA's Sea‐viewing Wide Field‐of‐View sensor. As this region is remote and known to be oligotrophic in spring (Chl‐a concentration typically at ∼0.05–0.08 mgm⁻³), it is intriguing to explore this unusual happening. Based on six different remote sensing data and numerical modelling, the results suggest that the injection of an ocean eddy is the most likely cause of the bloom. Due to long‐range transport of a large (700 × 500 km) anti‐cyclonic ocean eddy, coastal nutrients and plankton could be brought across hundreds of kilometres to the centre of northern SCS and impact the biogeochemistry. The open ocean part of the northern SCS basin has long been considered generally free from coastal influences. This work provides new evidence that proves otherwise. Moreover, from the perspective of physical oceanography, it is interesting to observe that, outside the monsoon seasons, there can be well‐defined anti‐cyclonic ocean circulation existing in the SCS without the prevailing monsoonal wind.

On 23 August, 2017, Typhoon Hato rapidly intensified by 10 kt within 3 h just prior to landfall in the city of Macau along the South China coast. Hato’s surface winds in excess of 50 m s⁻¹ devastated the city, causing unprecedented damage and social impact. This study reveals that anomalously warm ocean conditions in the nearshore shallow water (depth < 30 m) likely played a key role in Hato’s fast intensification. In particular, cooling of the sea surface temperature (SST) generated by Hato at the critical landfall point was estimated to be only 0.1–0.5 °C. The results from both a simple ocean mixing scheme and full dynamical ocean model indicate that SST cooling was minimized in the shallow coastal waters due to a lack of cool water at depth. Given the nearly invariant SST in the coastal waters, we estimate a large amount of heat flux, i.e., 1.9k W m⁻², during the landfall period. Experiments indicate that in the absence of shallow bathymetry, and thus, if nominal cool water had been available for vertical mixing, the SST cooling would have been enhanced from 0.1 °C to 1.4 °C, and sea to air heat flux reduced by about a quarter. Numerical simulations with an atmospheric model suggest that the intensity of Hato was very sensitive to air-sea heat flux in the coastal region, indicating the critical importance of coastal ocean hydrography.