Estimation of air sea heat fluxes and ocean mixing climatology caused by tropical cyclones on basin and annual scale

As a strong heat engine of the ocean, tropical cyclone provides an effective mechanism to transport heat both from ocean to atmosphere by maintaining strong wind, and within the quasi-steady stratified ocean by inducing vigorous ocean mixing. But at what magnitude and where the tropical cyclone induced mixing and air-sea heat flux happens is still obscured, which is therefore absent in recent climate projections. Insufficient understanding on the role of tropical cyclones in climate system leads to unclear linkage between tropical cyclones and climate changes. Previous studies mainly use observations at sea surface, numerical model data or few isolated in situ profile observations. In this study, for the first time, we use global covering, vertical resolving Argo data to compare the vertical thermal changes down to 2000 meters before and after storm passage. We create a global climatology of ocean mixing and latent air-sea heat flux induced by tropical cyclones. The results show strong subsurface mixing (up to 200m depth) and main thermocline mixing (400-800m) that presents more deeper ocean mixing than previous studies. And about 0.81 PW heat is pumped down by tropical cyclones. Besides, we supply a first estimate on annually averaged air-sea latent heat flux caused by tropical cyclones: about 9.4 W/m2, which accounts for about 10% of the global totals. What's more, a latitudinal variation of ocean thermal responses on tropical cyclones is found, which may be linked with the development of a storm, suggesting a geographically varying contribution of tropical cyclones to maintaining ocean stratification and regulating ocean circulation.