Forced Rossby wave in the northern South China Sea |
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Affiliation: | 1. School of Marine Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China;2. Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Zhuhai 519020, China;3. State Key Laboratory of Robotics, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China;4. State key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China |
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Abstract: | Time-longitude diagrams of monthly anomalies of TOPEX/Poseidon sea surface height (SSH), Levitus steric height, COADS wind stress curl, as well as meridional surface wind averaged over the northern South China Sea (SCS) from 18° to 22°N, exhibit a coherent westward phase propagation, with a westward propagation speed of about 5 cm s?1. The consistency between oceanic and atmospheric variables indicates that there is a forced Rossby wave in the northern SCS. The horizontal patterns of monthly SSH anomalies from observations and model sensitivity experiments show that the forced Rossby wave, originating to the northwest off Luzon Island, actually propagates west-northwestward towards the Guangdong coast because of zonal migration of the meridional surface wind. The winter Luzon Cold Eddy (LCE), which has been found from field observations, can be identified as a forced Rossby wave with a negative SSH anomaly in winter. It corresponds to strong upwelling and a negative temperature anomaly. Sensitivity experiments show that the wind forcing controls the generation of the LCE, while the Kuroshio is of minor importance. |
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