“…Using the Simple Ocean Data Assimilation (SODA) data from 1958-2007, Liu et al (2011 reported that the NPMOC is a multi-cell structure that includes the TC, the STC, a Deep Tropical Cell (DTC), and the SPC (Fig.1). Liu et al (2011) found that on average, the TC is a strong clockwise meridional cell centered at 50 m deep in the low-latitude ocean, the STC is a weaker clockwise meridional cell centered at 50 m deep, which moves seasonally between 7 N and 25 N, the DTC is a weaker anticlockwise meridional cell centered at 500 m deep between 2 N and 13 N, and the SPC is the weakest anticlockwise meridional cell between 35 N and 50 N. In contrast to the TC and STC, the DTC is not highly symmetrical, because there is a weak northward fl ow below 500 m deep between 2 and 13 N. The STC acts as a bridge that carries mass and heat between cells in the subtropical and tropical North Pacifi c (Pedlosky, 1987;McCreary and Yu, 1992;Liu et al, 1994;Wang and Huang, 2005). This has an important infl uence on the interdecadal variability of the tropical Pacifi c seasurface temperature (Nonake et al, 2001;McPhaden and Zhang, 2002), and the STC may have a crucial role in the interdecadal variability of the ENSO events (Gu and Philander, 1997;Nonaka et al, 2001;Zhang et al, 2005).…”