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Abstract
The physical and biological environments of the northeast South China Sea (SCS) were investigated using 11 year satellite and reanalysis data, including ocean chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentrations, sea surface wind (SSW) values, sea surface temperatures (SSTs), sea surface height anomalies (SSHAs), etc. The findings reveal that ocean Chl-a concentrations west of the Luzon Strait have the most significant annual cycles in the SCS. The dominant forcing mechanisms are monsoon winds and mesoscale eddies studied by multiple regression analysis. In the offshore regions, strong winds directly caused the enhancements by local vertical mixing and entrainment. As in the near-shore regions, the alongshore winds indirectly caused the enhancements by inducing coastal upwelling. Although SST is highly correlated with Chl-a concentration, SST cooling is difficult to observe in the bloom region. It is considered a consequence of monsoon and eddy forcings. Other mechanisms, such as local Ekman pumping by the wind stress curl and the geostrophic potential vorticity, have little effect on Chl-a seasonal variations.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Knowledge Innovation Programme of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Nos. KZCX2-YW-QN514 and KZCX2-YW-Q11-04), the National Basic Research Programme of China (Nos. 2007CB816004 and 2012CB417402), the Open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Satellite Ocean Environment Dynamics (No.SOED1209) and the National Foundation of Natural Science (41075041). The helpful suggestions and encouragement of Prof. Wei Wang (OUC) and Prof. Ruixin Huang (WHOI) are acknowledged. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions. We also thank NASA's Ocean Color Working Group for providing MODIS and SeaWiFS data, AVISO for providing SSHA data, Remote Sensing Systems for providing QuikSCAT wind vector and TMI SST data, Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center for providing MLD data, WHOI for providing OAflux data and WOA for providing climatology ocean data.