Near-inertial motion is an important dynamic process in the upper ocean and plays a significant role in mass, heat, and energy transport across the thermocline. In this study, the dissipation of wind-induced near-inertial energy in the thermocline is investigated by using observation data collected in July and August 2005 during the tropical storm Washi by a moored system at(19°35′N, 112°E) in the continental shelf region off Hainan Island. In the observation period, the near-inertial part dominated the observed ocean kinetic energy and about 80% of the near-inertial energy dissipated in the upper layer. Extremely strong turbulent mixing induced by near-inertial wave was observed in the thermocline, where the turbulent energy dissipation rate increased by two orders of magnitude above the background level. It is found that the energy loss of near-inertial waves in the thermocline is mainly in the large-scales. This is different from the previous hypothesis based on "Kolmogorov cascade" turbulence theory that the kinetic energy is dissipated mainly by small-scale motions.
The quality of background error statistics is one of the key components for successful assimilation of observations in a numerical model.The background error covariance(BEC) of ocean waves is generally estimated under an assumption that it is stationary over a period of time and uniform over a domain.However,error statistics are in fact functions of the physical processes governing the meteorological situation and vary with the wave condition.In this paper,we simulated the BEC of the significant wave height(SWH) employing Monte Carlo methods.An interesting result is that the BEC varies consistently with the mean wave direction(MWD).In the model domain,the BEC of the SWH decreases significantly when the MWD changes abruptly.A new BEC model of the SWH based on the correlation between the BEC and MWD was then developed.A case study of regional data assimilation was performed,where the SWH observations of buoy 22001 were used to assess the SWH hindcast.The results show that the new BEC model benefits wave prediction and allows reasonable approximations of anisotropy and inhomogeneous errors.
Internal solitary waves(ISWs) are frequently observed in the area between Dongsha Island(DI) and Taiwan Island. However, there have been few in-situ observations southwest of DI. To improve our knowledge of ISWs in this area, we observed the ISWs over the continental shelf(115.4°E, 20.3°N) from Aug. 29 to Oct. 10, 2011 with temperature sensors and an acoustic Doppler current profiler(ADCP). The observations showed that the a fully developed ISW produced a current whose maximum westward velocity was 0.92 m/s and maximum northward velocity was 0.47 m/s. During the 41-day observation period the ISWs appeared for three periods with about 7-day gaps between each period. During each day, two types of ISWs were observed. The first type of wave arrived regularly diurnally at the same time each day, with a similar pattern to that of the type- a wave identified by Ramp et al.(2004). The second type arrived about 12 h after the first type and was delayed about 1 hour each day; this wave type was related to the type- b wave. Thus, our observations confirmed that both type- a and type- b waves can reach the area southwest of the DI. Moreover, the waves observed by the mooring propagated toward the directions of 270°–315° clockwise from true north, indicating obvious refraction from uneven topography around DI.
This study focuses on the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of mesoscale eddies in the South China Sea(SCS). An automatic eddy detection method,based on the geometry of velocity vectors,was adopted to obtain an eddy dataset from 21 years of satellite altimeter data. Analysis revealed that the number of anticyclonic eddies was nearly equal to cyclonic eddies; in the SCS,cyclonic eddies are generally stronger than anticyclonic eddies and anticyclonic eddies are larger and longer-lived than cyclonic eddies. Anticyclonic eddies tend to survive longer in the spring and summer,while cyclonic eddies have longer lifetimes in the autumn and winter. The characteristics and seasonal variations of eddies in the SCS are strongly related to variations in general ocean circulation,in the homogeneity of surface wind stress,and in the unevenness of bottom topography in the SCS. The spatial and temporal variation of mesoscale eddies in the SCS could,therefore,be an important index for understanding local hydrodynamics and regional climate change.
A moored acoustic Doppler current profiler(ADCP) data,satellite-derived sea surface wind data,and the chlorophyll-a concentration were used to examine the influence of typhoon events on the upper ocean in the central Luzon Strait. The data were collected between August 27 and October 6,2011. Large changes in ocean dynamics and marine life were recorded in the upper layers over the short term during the transit of each of the three violent typhoons that passed over the region during the study period. The geostrophic flow during the period of ADCP monitoring was comparable to the Ekman flow,recently shown to be prominent in the upper layer. Based on the influence of the three typhoon events that swept the Luzon Strait or traversed Luzon Island on their way to the South China Sea,we postulated a typhoon-induced upwelling around the ADCP and found that upward isothermal displacements reached 11.8–39.0 m,which was confirmed by the sea-level anomaly data recorded at the same time. This variability in the upper ocean may play an important role in biological activity,especially in offshore deep-sea regions.
A bstrac t In this paper,we propose a parallel data assimilation module based on ensemble optimal interpolation(En OI). We embedded the method into the full-spectral third-generation wind-wave model,WAVEWATCH III Version 3.14,producing a wave data assimilation system. We present our preliminary experiments assimilating altimeter significant wave heights(SWH) using the En OI-based wave assimilation system. Waters north of 15°S in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea were chosen as the target computational domain,which was two-way nested into the global implementation of the WAVEWATCH III. The wave model was forced by six-hourly ocean surface wind velocities from the cross-calibrated multi-platform wind vector dataset. The assimilation used along-track SWH data from the Jason-2 altimeter. We evaluated the effect of the assimilation on the analyses and hindcasts,and found that our technique was effective. Although there was a considerable mean bias in the control SWHs,a month-long consecutive assimilation reduced the bias by approximately 84% and the root mean-square error(RMSE) by approximately 65%. Improvements in the SWH RMSE for both the analysis and hindcast periods were more significant in July than January,because of the monsoon climate. The improvement in model skill persisted for up to 48 h in July. Furthermore,the SWH data assimilation had the greatest impact in areas and seasons where and when the sea-states were dominated by swells.
The application of ensemble optimal interpolation in wave data assimilation in the South China Sea is presented. A sampling strategy for a stationary ensemble is first discussed. The stationary ensemble is constructed by sampling from 24-h-interval significant wave height differences of model outputs over a long period,and is validated with altimeter significant wave height data,indicating that the ensemble errors have nearly the same probability distribution function. The background error covariance fields expressed by the ensemble sampled are anisotropic. Updating the static samples by season,the seasonal characteristics of the correlation coefficient distribution are reflected. Hindcast experiments including assimilation and control runs are conducted for the summer of 2010 in the South China Sea. The effect of ensemble optimal interpolation assimilation on wave hindcasts is validated using different satellite altimeter data(Jason-1 and 2 and ENVISAT) and buoy observations. It is found that the ensemble-optimal-interpolation-based wave assimilation scheme for the South China Sea achieves improvements similar to those of the previous optimal-interpolation-based scheme,indicating that the practical application of this computationally cheap ensemble method is feasible.
The formation of mesoscale eddies and the structure of the surface flow field in the Luzon Strait area were examined using in-situ CTD data,Argo float data,and multi-satellite remote sensing data collected from May to August 2009. The results show that vigorous water exchange between Kuroshio water and South China Sea(SCS) water began to emerge over the 200 m water column throughout the strait. Based on an objective definition of surface currents,float A69 tracked an anti-cyclonic eddy southwest of Taiwan Island under a Lagrangian current measurement. The salinity inside the anti-cyclonic eddy was higher than in typical SCS water but lower than in Kuroshio mainstream water,indicating that this eddy was induced by Kuroshio frontal intrusion through the Luzon Strait and into the SCS. From hydrographic data,we propose that continuous horizontal diffusion with high-salinity characteristics in the subsurface layer could extend to 119°E or even further west. The high-temperature filament,large positive sea level anomaly and clockwise geostrophic current all confirmed the existence of this warm eddy in May and June. A strongly negative wind stress curl maintained the eddy until it died. The surface flow field during July and August was rather complicated. Float A83 described an east-west orientated shuttle run in the 20°N section that was not reported by previous studies. At the same time,float A80 indicated a Kuroshio bend into the north-central region of Luzon Strait but it did not cross 120.5°E. The water mass rejoining the Kuroshio mainstream from the southern tip of Taiwan Island was less saline,indicating an entrainment of water from SCS by the Kuroshio bend.
The northern South China Sea(SCS) is frequently affected by typhoons. During severe storm events, wave-current interactions produce storm surges causing enormous damage in the path of the typhoon. To evaluate the influence of wave-current interactions on storm surge, we used a coupled ocean-atmospherewave-sediment transport(COAWST) modeling system with radiation-stress and vortex-force formulations to simulate two typically intense tropical storms that invaded the SCS, namely Typhoons Nuri(2008) and Hagupit(2008), and compared results with observations from the Hong Kong Observatory. Both radiationstress and vortex-force formulations significantly improved the accuracy of the simulation. Depending on which typhoon and the topography encountered, the influence of surface waves on the oceanic circulation showed different characteristics, including the differences of range and intensity of storm surge between vortex-force and radiation-stress experiments. During typhoon landing, strong sea-surface elevation in concert with wave set-up/set-down caused the adjustment of the momentum balance. In the direction perpendicular to the current, but especially in the cross-shore direction, the pressure gradient and wave effects on the current dominated the momentum balance.
