Sea surface temperature trends in the waters adjacent to Taiwan from 1982 to 2003

Sea surface temperature (SST) is an important parameter for the study of oceanic environment. In this study we used the SST data derived from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) onboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) series satellites to study the SST trends in the waters adjacent to Taiwan from 1982 to 2003. The Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) method was employed to retrieve the trend. Results show that the SST in the waters adjacent to Taiwan had a warming trend of about 0.50degreesC/decade and 0.47degreesC/decade in the Taiwan Strait and in the Kuroshio region east of Taiwan, respectively. The warming trend in winter is much higher than that in summer. This could be the reason why the people who live in Taiwan felt warm winter in recent years. The waters adjacent to Taiwan are also located at the high warming trend areas in the world. They are much higher than the mean trend of global ocean. Not only the waters around Taiwan are in the high warming areas, but also the oceans around China are. The high warming areas in the China oceans seem to be related to the distribution of atmospheric aerosols in the western Pacific Ocean.