The Reanalysis of Currents and Throughflow Volume Transport in the Taiwan Strait

Abstract

Currents and throughflow transport in the Taiwan Strait (TS) are systematically analyzed using a new regional ocean reanalysis dataset (China Ocean ReAnalysis, CORA in brief), recently released by National Marine Data and Information Service (NMDIS) in 2009, covering China's coastal waters and adjacent seas. The total throughflow volume transport through TS presents a seasonal variability with the annual-mean of 1.49Sv. It reaches maximum in summer with mean value of 2.33Sv, while in winter the mean transport falls to 0.78Sv on average. The estimated throughflow transport is in good agreement with the observational results. The comparisons of the results with historical observations and numerical simulations also show that CORA performs well on reproducing the currents and temperature field in TS region. In addition, CORA not only successfully reproduced the known oceanic phenomena in TS such as temperature front, up-wind flow in fall, winter northward flow blocking in Penghu Channel, and the winter anticyclonic eddy located at north of Changyun Rise (CYR), but it also found a new cyclonic eddy in north TS in winter.

Keywords:

• China ocean reanalysis
• Taiwan Strait
• currents
• throughflow transport
• eddy

Acknowledgements

This research is jointly supported by grants of the National Basic Research Program of China (2007CB816001), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41030854, 40776016, 40906015, and 40906016), and the Research Project of NMDIS (29106006C), and Research Foundation of SOA (2011221, 2011224). The authors also appreciate supports from the National Basic Research Program of China (2005CB422302, 2005CB422307, and 2007CB411806) and Great Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (40490263, 40976005). The precious suggestions given by the two reviewers are also appreciated.