The response of the upper-ocean temperatures and currents in the tropical Pacific to the spatial distribution of chlorophyll-a and its seasonal cycle is investigated using a coupled atmosphere-ocean model and a stand-alone oceanic general circulation model.The spatial distribution of chlorophyll-a significantly influences the mean state of models in the tropical Pacific.The annual mean SST in the eastern equatorial Pacific decreases accompanied by a shallow thermocline and stronger currents because of shallow penetration depth of solar radiation.Equatorial upwelling dominates the heat budget in that region.Atmosphere-ocean interaction processes can further amplify such changes. The seasonal cycle of chlorophyll-a can dramatically change ENSO period in the coupled model.After introducing the seasonal cycle of chlorophyll-a concentration,the peak of the power spectrum becomes broad,and longer periods（〉3 years） are found.These changes led to ENSO irregularities in the model. The increasing period is mainly due to the slow speed of Rossby waves,which are caused by the shallow mean thermocline in the northeastern Pacific.
Inter-tidal(subtidal) transport processes in coastal sea depend on the residual motion, turbulent dispersion and relevant sources/sinks. In Feng et al.(2008), an updated Lagrangian inter-tidal transport equation, as well as new concept of Lagrangian in- ter-tidal concentration(LIC), has been proposed for a general nonlinear shallow water system. In the present study, the LIC is nu- merically applied for the first time to passive tracers in idealized settings and salinity in the Bohai Sea, China. Circulation and tracer motion in the three idealized model seas with different topography or coastline, termed as ‘flat-bottom', ‘stairs' and ‘cape' case, re- spectively, are simulated. The dependence of the LIC on initial tidal phase suggests that the nonlinearities in the stairs and cape cases are stronger than that in the flat-bottom case. Therefore, the ‘flat-bottom' case still meets the convectively weakly nonlinear condi- tion. For the Bohai Sea, the simulation results show that most parts of it still meet the weakly nonlinear condition. However, the de- pendence of the LIS(Lagrangian inter-tidal salinity) on initial tidal phase is significant around the southern headland of the Liaodong Peninsula and near the mouth of the Yellow River. The nonlinearity in the former region is mainly related to the complicated coast- lines, and that in the latter region is due to the presence of the estuarine salinity front.
