Circulations east of Taiwan and in East China Sea and east of Ryukyu Islands during early summer 1985

A modified inverse method is used to compute the circulations east of Taiwan and in the East China Sec and east of the Ryukyu Islands with hydrographic data obtained during early summer of 1985. The computational region covers an area west of 129°E and from 21°45'N to 35°N. The computed results show that: (1 ) The net volume transport (VT ) of the Kuroshio through 21°45'N Section east of Ta Taiwan and west of 123°E is about 45 × 10￣6 m￣3/sduring early summer of 1985. The Kuroshio has. two current cores. One is located near Taiwan, and its velocity isvery large and its maximum velocity is 226 cm/s at the 100 m level, which is close to the maximum velocity of the beginning of the Kuroshio east of the Philippines. The other is located further to the east, and its maximum velocity is159 cm/s at the 100m level; (2) through a transect northwest Of Miyakojima Island and a transect southwest of Okinawa laaed the volume transports of the Kuroshio in the East China Sea both are about 25 × 10￣6 m￣3/s. The maximumvelocity of the Kuroshio at these two sections is 194 and 128 cm/s, respectively, and both are located on the shelfbreak; (3) beneath and east of the Kurohio there are the countercurrent (4) southeast of Okinawa Island there is anortheastward current, and its VT at Section HI is about 12. 6 × 10￣6 m￣3/s, and it comes from a westward flow at 129° This project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract No. 49476278.(Second Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Hongzhou310012, China) (Institute of Oceanography, Taiwan University, Taipei, China)E Section and the recirculating gyre, and does not originate from the Kuroshio east of Taiwan during early summer of 1985. There is a southwestward abyssal current east of Okinawa Islands (5) there are several different scale eddies in this computational region. For example, there is a meso-scale strong cyclonic eddy east of Miyakojima Island.

Effects of mesoscale eddies on the internal solitary wave propagation

The mesoscale eddy and internal wave both are phenomena commonly observed in oceans. It is aimed to investigate how the presence of a mesoscale eddy in the ocean affects wave form deformation of the internal solitary wave propagation. An ocean eddy is produced by a quasi-geostrophic model in f-plane, and the one-dimensional nonlinear variable-coefficient extended Korteweg-de Vries （eKdV） equation is used to simulate an internal solitary wave passing through the mesoscale eddy field. The results suggest that the mode structures of the linear internal wave are modified due to the presence of the mesoscale eddy field. A cyclonic eddy and an anticyclonic eddy have different influences on the background environment of the internal solitary wave propagation. The existence of a mesoscale eddy field has almost no prominent impact on the propagation of a smallamplitude internal solitary wave only based on the first mode vertical structure, but the mesoscale eddy background field exerts a considerable influence on the solitary wave propagation if considering high-mode vertical structures. Furthermore, whether an internal solitary wave first passes through anticyclonic eddy or cyclonic eddy, the deformation of wave profiles is different. Many observations of solitary internal waves in the real oceans suggest the formation of the waves. Apart from topography effect, it is shown that the mesoscale eddy background field is also a considerable factor which influences the internal solitary wave propagation and deformation.

The diel vertical migration of sound scatterers observed by an acoustic Doppler current profiler in the Luzon Strait from July 2009 to April 2011

Acoustic Doppler current profiler （ADCP） receives echoes from sound scatterers, then their speed is calcu- lated by the Doppler effect. In the open ocean, most of these backscatterers are from the plankton. The sound scatterers descend down to depth at around dawn, their mean speed is 2.9 cm/s, then they ascend up to the surface layer at around dusk with a mean speed of 2.1 cm/s, in the Luzon Strait. The descending speed is faster, which suggests that this zooplankton population may accelerate its downward migration under the action of the gravity. The vertical distribution of a mean volume backscattering strength （MVB- S） in the nighttime has two peaks, which locate near the upper and lower boundary layers of halocline, respectively. However, the backscatterers only aggregate near the surface layer in the daytime. The diel ver- tical migration （DVM） of sound scatterers has several characteristic patterns, it is stronger in summer, but weaker in winter, and the maximum peak occurs in September. The DVM occurrence is synchronous with the seawater temperature increasing at around dawn and dusk, it may affect the ocean mixing and water stratification,

Progress of studies in China from July 2010 to May 2015 on the influence of the Kuroshio on neighboring Chinese seas and the Ryukyu Current

The influence of the Kuroshio on neighboring Chinese seas and the Ryukyu Current is a very important subject of interest in physical oceanography. To deeply explain the research progress made by Chinese scientists from July2010 to May 2015, the following three aspects are reviewed in this paper. The first concerns the Kuroshio intrusion into the South China Sea（SCS） and its circulation around the Luzon Strait. There are two very important points to be explained： the seasonal and inter-annual variation of the Kuroshio intrusion and the mechanisms of the Kuroshio intrusion and the influence of the Kuroshio on currents in the Luzon Strait and circulation in the northern SCS. The second concerns the variability of the Kuroshio and its interaction with the East China Sea（ECS）. There are following four interesting topics to be explained： an overview of studies on the Kuroshio in the ECS; the Kuroshio intrusion into the ECS, water exchange, and dynamic impacts; the downstream increase of nutrient transport by the Kuroshio; and the application of satellite remote sensing on terrestrial material transport by the Kuroshio intrusion into the ECS. Third, the interaction between the Ryukyu Current and Kuroshio in the ECS are also discussed. Finally, the main results are summarized and areas of further study are simply discussed.

Circulation in the South China Sea in summer of 1998

Based on the CTD and meteorological data obtained by R/V Xiangyanghong No. 14 in the South China Sea (SCS) in the summer of 1998, both current velocity and volume transport are calculated by using a modified inverse model. Circulation in the SCS is analyzed by combining the calculated results with ADCP data. The following results are obtained, (i) The most important feature of the circulation in the northeastern SCS is that a branch of the Kuroshio intrudes into the SCS with a small volume transport. It flows anticyclonically through the Bashi Strait and towards the southwest off the Taiwan Island, and it does not intrude into the inner SCS. (ii) The northern SCS is dominated mainly by a cyclonic circulation system with two cold eddies, (iii) The central and southwestern SCSs are mainly occupied by anticyclonic circulation systems, including three anticyclonic and one stronger cyclonic eddies, (iv) In the southeastern SCS, there is a large scope of cyclonic circulation extending in the SW-NE direction,

Variability of the currents in the Luzon Strait during spring of 2002 obtained from observations and satellite geostrophic currents and spectral analyses

The structure and variability of the currents in the Luzon Strait during spring of 2002 are studied, based on the current measurements at the average position of the mooring station (20°49′57"N, 120°48′12"E) from March 17 to April 15, 2002, satellite geostrophic currents in the Luzon Strait, and the spectral analyses, using the maximum entropy method. The subtidal currents at the mooring station show de-creased amplitudes downward with an anti-cyclonic rotation, suggesting that the currents enter and exit the South China Sea in the upper and intermediate layers, respectively. The vertical structure of the currents in the Luzon Strait suggests strongly the sandwiched structure of the LST, even though the bottom part of the profile is not resolved by the observational grid. The spectral analyses show the following periods of significant spectral peaks: (1) the tidal currents variability in the vertical direction; (2) the period about 4-6 d for the two cases of frequency f >0 and f<0 at the 200 and 500 m levels, but at the 800 m level only for the case of f >0; (3) The fluctuation in the period range is about 2-3 days for the two cases of f >0 and f<0 at the 200, 500 and 800 m levels, namely the Luzon Strait currents exhibit significant synoptical variability throughout the water column up to 800 m deep. Both direct current measurements and in situ hydrographic and satellite survey suggest no Kuroshio loop current in the Luzon Strait during the spring of 2002.

Analysis of internal tidal characteristics in the layer above 450 m from acoustic Doppler current profiler observations in the Luzon Strait

The characteristics of internal tides in the upper layer of the Luzon Strait are investigated on the basis of direct-observation current data recorded on April 25 and September 26, 2008 by an acoustic Doppler current profiler. Spectral analysis and energy estimation show that the diurnals and semidiurnals carry most of the energy of internal tides. Values of the depth-integrated total energy E for the three frequency bands of diurnal, semidiurnal, and high frequencies are 31, 6.9, and 3.4 kJ. m, respectively. Near-inertial peaks are only present in the baroclinic component. The behavior of typical tidal frequencies （i.e., O1, K1, M2, MK3, and M4） and the near-inertial frequency is basically consistent with linear internal wave theory, which predicts E＋（ω）/E_（ω）=（ω-f）2/（ω＋f）2 at depths above 66 m, while not all prominent tidal components coincide well with the relation of the linear internal wave field at other depths. Examinations of depth structures of the baroclinic tides and temporal variations show that the surface tides and internal tides are both of mixed type, having diurnal inequality and spring-neap fortnight periods. The K1 and O1 tides have comparable cross- and along-shelf components, while the M2 and S2 tides propagate toward the shelf in the northern South China Sea as wave beams. The amplitude and phase of internal tides vary with time, but M2 and S2 tides appear to have structures dominated by the first mode, while the K1 and O1 tides resemble second-mode structures. The minor to major axis ratios are close to expected values of flω in the thermocline.