Interannual Variability of the Heat Budget in the Tropical Pacific Ocean and Its Link to the Overturning Circulation

Abstract Using a suite of coupled climate models and an extensive set of ocean heat budget diagnostics, we address the relative roles of heat convergence and surface heat flux in driving the annual rate of ocean heat content (OHC) change in the tropical Pacific and its interannual variability. The net heat convergence is further separated into convergences associated with the large‐scale ocean circulation, (parameterized) mesoscale effects and small‐scale mixing. It is found that the heat convergence due to the large‐scale ocean circulation provides the dominant contribution to the annual OHC tendency. Interannual variations of heat convergence are larger in the tropical Pacific than in the tropical Atlantic. These heat convergence variations are linked to interannual variations of the Pacific meridional overturning circulation (PMOC), driven by the associated variations in the northward Ekman transport (EkT). Northward variations of the tropical PMOC and EkT are typically associated with heat divergence and negative annual OHC tendency in the central and eastern near‐equatorial Pacific along with heat convergence and positive annual OHC tendency in the western and northwestern tropical Pacific. In the Niño3.4 region, interannual variations of the near‐surface OHC tendency negatively (positively) correlate with interannual PMOC variations at zero lag (1 year lag, when PMOC leads OHC).