A case study of the tropical Hot Event in November 2006 (HE0611) using a geostationary meteorological satellite and the TAO/TRITON mooring array

Qin et al. have found Hot Events (HE), which are short‐term (about 20 days) large‐scale (about 15,000,000 km2) regions with very high Sea Surface Temperatures (SST > 30°C). Following their definition, an HE was identified in the tropical western Pacific in November 2006, which is named HE0611. A case study of HE is conducted by using the advanced satellite products and in‐situ measurements from the TAO/TRITON mooring array. Two parts (HE0611‐East and ‐West) with very high SST connected to form HE0611. SST in HE0611‐West increases quickly with large diurnal SST variations, which are caused by large solar radiation and suppressed latent heat loss. The increase of the mixed‐layer heat content is clearly accounted for the accumulated heat gain through the air‐sea interaction. The formation mechanism of HE0611‐East is completely different; its very high SST is supported by a subsurface high SST anomaly associated with the El Niño. Two phenomena similar to HE0611 were observed in November of the El Niño years of 1994 and 2002.