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This study presents observational findings of air–sea turbulent heat flux anomalies during the onset of the South China Sea summer monsoon (SCSSM) in 2021 and explains the mechanism for high-resolution heat flux variations. Turbulent heat flux discrepancies are not uniform throughout the basin but indicate a significant regional disparity in the South China Sea (SCS), which also experiences evident year-to-year variability. Based on buoy- and cruise-based air–sea measurements, high-temporal-resolution (less than hourly) anomalies in the latent heat flux during the SCSSM burst are unexpectedly determined by sea-air humidity differences instead of wind effects under near-neutral and mixed marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL) stability conditions. However, latent heat anomalies are mainly induced by wind speed under changing MABL conditions. The sensible heat flux is much weaker, with its anomalies dominated by sea-air temperature differences regardless of the boundary layer condition. The observational results are used to examine the discrepancies in turbulent heat fluxes and associated air–sea variables in reanalysis products. The comparisons indicate that latent and sensible heat fluxes in the reanalysis are overestimated by approximately 55 Wm−2 and 3 Wm−2, respectively. These overestimations are mainly induced by higher estimates of sea-air humidity/temperature differences. The relative humidity is underestimated by approximately 4.2% in the two high-resolution reanalysis products. The higher SST (near-surface specific humidity) and lower air temperature (specific air humidity) eventually lead to higher estimates of sea-air humidity/temperature differences (1.75 g·kg−1/0.25 °C), which are the dominant factors controlling the variations in the air–sea turbulent heat fluxes.

Using several cloud properties retrieved from the Himawari-8 satellite, combined with the best track storm center information, the temporal-spatial features of tropical cyclone (TC) diurnal pulses in 2015 Super Typhoon Atsani (T1516) are coherently depicted. To demonstrate the radially outward transition processes of the diurnal pulses from one cloud type to another, we divided high clouds into three types: opaque high cloud (OHC), cirrostratus (Cs), and cirrus (Ci). Two alternatively appeared peaks in cloud top height (CTH) within the storm central area and their corresponding outward pulses are identified. The first pulse covers a 24-hour period, it starts at ~0500−0700 local solar time (LST), with a gradual transition from OHC to Cs, then ends in Ci at around 0400 LST. The second pulse lasts for half a day and limited within 1000 km from the storm center. When the first CTH pulse ends in OHC, Cs, and Ci, their cloud fractional coverage and the outward expansion of large cloud optical thickness also reach maximum accordingly.

The responses of cloud and diagnostic fields to the poleward shift of the local Hadley cell subsiding edge are examined using observational and reanalysis data from December 1982 to February 2016. Over the western North Pacific, the interannual variability of the local Hadley cell subsiding edge is marked by an anomalous rising motion, decreased large‐scale static stability, and corresponding increases of the midlevel cloud fraction over the climatological sinking zone around 35°N. The most sensitive cloud type is identified to be cumulus congestus, with cloud top pressures in the range of 440–680 hPa and optical thicknesses in the range of 23–60. This kind of cloud is estimated to be the main contributor to the net negative top‐of‐atmosphere radiation anomaly and to constrain the distribution of the anomalous precipitation associated with the local HC expansion.