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A train of subsurface mesoscale eddies (SMEs) consisting of two cyclones and two anticyclones was observed in the northeastern South China Sea (NESCS) in 2015 by a mooring array. In contrast to the widely reported surface-intensified eddies, the SMEs had weak surface signals but showed maximum velocity at ∼370 m with a magnitude of 17.2 cm s−1. The SMEs generally propagated westward with a speed of ∼4.3 cm s−1, which resulted in a distinct ∼120-day-period oscillations in the moored time series. Based on the concurrent velocity, temperature, and salinity from the mooring array, three-dimensional structures of the SMEs were constructed, which were then used to quantify water mass transports induced by them. The results revealed that all these SMEs were vertically tilted with an influence depth exceeding 1000 m. Water mass analysis suggested that the cyclonic and anticyclonic SMEs trapped the northwest Pacific water and the NESCS local water, respectively. The cyclones transported 1.00 ± 0.25 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) North Pacific Intermediate Water westward into the NESCS during the 2-yr observation period, accounting for 61.7% of the observed volume transport through the Luzon Strait between 25.8 and 27.4σ0. Furthermore, it also showed that both the trapping and stirring effects of the SMEs induced an eastward heat transport across the Luzon Strait, but the role of the former was much more important than the latter. The present results suggested that the SMEs near the Luzon Strait may provide a novel route for the intermediate-layer water exchange between the NESCS and Pacific.

The complex behaviors of internal solitary waves (ISWs) in the Andaman Sea were revealed using data collected over a nearly 22-month-long observation period completed by two moorings. Emanating from the submarine ridges northwest of Sumatra Island and south of Car Nicobar, two types of ISWs, referred to as S- and C-ISWs, respectively, were identified in the measurements, and S-ISWs were generally found to be stronger than C-ISWs. The observed S- and C-ISWs frequently appeared as multiwave packets, accounting for 87% and 43% of their observed episodes, respectively. The simultaneous measurements collected by the two moorings featured evident variability along the S-ISW crests, with the average wave amplitude in the northern portion being 36% larger than that in the southern portion. The analyses of the arrival times revealed that the S-ISWs in the northern portion occurred more frequently and arrived more irregularly than those in the southern portion. Moreover, the temporal variability of ISWs drastically differed on monthly and seasonal time scales, characterized by relatively stronger S-ISWs in spring and autumn. Over the interannual time scale, the temporal variations in ISWs were generally subtle. The monthly-to-annual variations of ISWs could be mostly explained by the variability in stratification, which could be modulated by the monsoons, the winds in equatorial Indian Ocean, and the mesoscale eddies in the Andaman Sea. From careful analyses preformed based on the long-term measurements, we argued that the observed ISWs were likely generated via internal tide release mechanism and their generation processes were obviously modulated by background circulations.

Subthermocline eddies (STEs), also termed intrathermocline eddies or submesoscale coherent vortices, are lens-shaped eddies with anomalous water properties located in or below the thermocline. Although STEs have been discovered in many parts of the World Ocean, most of them were observed accidentally in hydrographic profiles, and direct velocity measurements are very rare. In this study, dynamic features of STEs in the Kuroshio Extension (KE) region are examined in detail using concurrent temperature/salinity and velocity measurements from mooring arrays. During the moored observation periods of 2004–06 and 2015–19, 11 single-core STEs, including 8 with warm/salty cores and 3 with cold/fresh cores, were captured. The thermohaline properties in their cores suggest that these STEs may originate from the subarctic front and the upstream Kuroshio south of Japan. The estimated radius of these STEs varied from 8 to 66 km with the mean value of ~30 km. The warm/salty STEs seemed to be larger and rotate faster than the cold/fresh ones. In addition to single-core STEs, a dual-core STE was observed in the KE recirculation region, which showed that the upper cold/fresh cores stacked vertically over the lower warm/salty cores. Based on the observed parameters of the STEs, their Rossby number and Burger number were further estimated, with values up to 0.5 and 1, respectively. Furthermore, a low Richardson number O (0.25) was found at the periphery of these STEs, suggesting that shear instability-induced turbulent mixing may be an erosion route for the STEs.

Although observational efforts have been made to detect submesoscale currents (submesoscales) in regions with deep mixed layers and/or strong mesoscale kinetic energy (KE), there have been no long-term submesoscale observations in subtropical gyres, which are characterized by moderate values of both mixed layer depths and mesoscale KE. To explore submesoscale dynamics in this oceanic regime, two nested mesoscale- and submesoscale-resolving mooring arrays were deployed in the northwestern Pacific subtropical countercurrent region during 2017–19. Based on the 2 years of data, submesoscales featuring order one Rossby numbers, large vertical velocities (with magnitude of 10–50 m day−1) and vertical heat flux, and strong ageostrophic KE are revealed in the upper 150 m. Although most of the submesoscales are surface intensified, they are found to penetrate far beneath the mixed layer. They are most energetic during strong mesoscale strain periods in the winter–spring season but are generally weak in the summer–autumn season. Energetics analysis suggests that the submesoscales receive KE from potential energy release but lose a portion of it through inverse cascade. Because this KE sink is smaller than the source term, a forward cascade must occur to balance the submesoscale KE budget, for which symmetric instability may be a candidate mechanism. By synthesizing observations and theories, we argue that the submesoscales are generated through a combination of baroclinic instability in the upper mixed and transitional layers and mesoscale strain-induced frontogenesis, among which the former should play a more dominant role in their final generation stage.

Based on long-term mooring-array and satellite observations, three-dimensional structure and interannual variability of the Kuroshio Loop Current (KLC) in the northeastern South China Sea (SCS) were investigated. The 3-yr moored data between 2014 and 2017 revealed that the KLC mainly occurred in winter and it exhibited significant interannual variability with moderate, weak, and strong strengths in the winters of 2014/15, 2015/16, and 2016/17, respectively. Spatially, the KLC structure was initially confined to the upper 500 m near the Luzon Strait, but it became more barotropic, with kinetic energy transferring from the baroclinic mode to the barotropic mode when it extended into the SCS interior. Through analyzing the historical altimeter data between 1993 and 2019, it is found that the KLC event in 2016/17 winter is the strongest one since 1993. Moored-data-based energetics analysis suggested that the growth of this KLC event was primarily fed by the strong wind work associated with the strengthened northeast monsoon in that La Niña–year winter. By examining all of the historical KLC events, it is found that the strength of KLC is significantly modulated by El Niño–Southern Oscillation, being stronger in La Niña and weaker in El Niño years. This interannual modulation could be explained by the strengthened (weakened) northeast monsoon associated with the anomalous atmospheric cyclone (anticyclone) in the western North Pacific during La Niña (El Niño) years, which inputs more (less) energy and negative vorticity southwest of Taiwan that is favorable (unfavorable) for the development of KLC.

The deep water overflow at three gaps in the Heng-Chun Ridge of the Luzon Strait is investigated based on long-term continuous mooring observations. For the first time, these observations enable us to assess the detailed structure and variability in the deep water overflow directly spilling into the South China Sea (SCS). The strong bottom-intensified flows at moorings WG2 and WG3 intrude into the deep SCS with maximum along-stream velocities of 19.2 ± 9.9 and 15.2 ± 6.8 cm s−1, respectively, at approximately 50 m above the bottom. At mooring WG1, the bottom current revealed spillage into the Luzon Trough from the SCS. The volume transport estimates are 0.73 ± 0.08 Sv at WG2 and 0.45 ± 0.02 Sv at WG3, suggesting that WG2 is the main entrance for the deep water overflow crossing the Heng-Chun Ridge into the SCS. By including the long-term observational results from previous studies, the pathway of the deep water overflow through the Luzon Strait is also presented. In addition, significant intraseasonal variations with dominant time scales of approximately 26 days at WG2 and WG3 have been revealed, which tend to be enhanced in spring and may reverse the deep water overflow.

The role of mesoscale eddies in modulating the semidiurnal internal tide (SIT) in the northern South China Sea (SCS) is examined using the data from a cross-shaped mooring array. From November 2013 to January 2014, an anticyclonic eddy (AE) and cyclonic eddy (CE) pair crossed the westward SIT beam originating in Luzon Strait. Observations showed that, because of the current and stratification modulations by the eddy pair, the propagation speed of the mode-1 SIT sped up (slowed down) by up to 0.7 m s−1 (0.4 m s−1) within the AE’s (CE’s) southern portion. As a result of the spatially varying phase speed, the mode-1 SIT wave crest was clockwise rotated (counterclockwise rotated) within the AE (CE) core, while it exhibited convex and concave (concave and convex) patterns on the southern and northern peripheries of the AE (CE), respectively. In mid-to-late November, most of the mode-1 SIT energy was refracted by the AE away from Dongsha Island toward the north part of the northern SCS, which resulted in enhanced internal solitary waves (ISWs) there. Corresponding to the energy refraction, responses of the depth-integrated mode-1 SIT energy to the eddies were generally in phase at the along-beam-direction moorings but out of phase in the south and north parts of the northern SCS at the cross-beam-direction moorings. From late December to early January, intensified mode-2 SIT was observed, whose energy was likely transferred from the mode-1 SIT through eddy–wave interactions. The observation results reported here are helpful to improve the capability to predict internal tides and ISWs in the northern SCS.

Spatiotemporal variations in internal solitary wave (ISW) polarity over the continental shelf of the northern South China Sea (SCS) were examined based on mooring-array observations from October 2013 to June 2014. Depression ISWs were observed at the easternmost mooring, where the water depth is 323 m. Then, they evolved into elevation ISWs at the westernmost mooring, with a depth of 149 m. At the central mooring, with a depth of 250 m, the ISWs generally appeared as depression waves in autumn and spring but were elevation waves in winter. Seasonal variations in stratification caused this seasonality in polarity. On the intraseasonal time scales, anticyclonic eddies can modulate ISW polarity at the central mooring by deepening the thermocline depth for periods of approximately 8 days. During some days in autumn and spring, depression ISWs and ISWs in the process of changing polarity from depression to elevation appeared at time intervals of 10–12 h because of the thermocline deepening caused by internal tides. Isotherm anomalies associated with eddies and internal tides have a more significant contribution to determining the polarity of ISWs than do the background currents. The observational results reported here highlight the impact of multiscale processes on the evolution of ISWs.

Both internal solitary waves (ISWs) and mesoscale eddies are ubiquitous in the northern South China Sea (SCS). In this study, the authors examine the impacts of mesoscale eddies on the ISWs transiting the northern SCS deep basin that evolve from the steepening internal tide generated in the Luzon Strait, using in situ data collected from a specifically designed mooring array. From November 2013 to January 2014, an energetic mesoscale eddy pair consisting of one anticyclonic eddy (AE) and one cyclonic eddy (CE) propagated across the mooring array. Observations revealed that the amplitude, propagation direction, and speed of the transbasin ISWs were significantly modulated by the eddy pair. When the moorings were covered by the southern portion of the AE, the ISW amplitudes decreased by as much as 67% because of the thermocline deepening along the wave direction and the energy divergence along the wave front. When the moorings were covered by the northern portions of both eddies, the amplitude of ISWs also decreased but to a relatively smaller degree. ISWs propagated the fastest inside the southern portion of the AE, where both the thermocline deepening and eddy currents enhanced the propagation speed of ISWs. Under the influence of the AE (CE) core, ISWs propagated more northward (southward) than usual. The observational results reported here highlight the importance of resolving mesoscale eddies in circulation–internal wave coupled models to accurately predict kinematic characteristics of ISWs.

Sheddings of Kuroshio Loop Current (KLC) eddies in the northeastern South China Sea (SCS) are investigated using mooring arrays, multiple satellite data, and data-assimilative HYCOM products. Based on altimeter sea surface heights between 1992 and 2014, a total of 19 prominent KLC eddy shedding (KLCES) events were identified, among which four events were confirmed by the concurrent moored and satellite observations. Compared to the leaping behavior of Kuroshio, KLCES is a relatively short-duration phenomenon that primarily occurs in boreal autumn and winter. The KLC and its shedding anticyclonic eddy (AE) trap a large amount of Pacific water with high temperature–salinity and low chlorophyll concentration in the upper layer. The corresponding annual-mean transport caused by KLCES reaches 0.24–0.38 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1), accounting for 6.8%–10.8% of the upper-layer Luzon Strait transport. Altimeter-based statistics show that among ~90% of the historical KLCES events, a cyclonic eddy (CE) is immediately generated behind the AE southwest of Taiwan. Both energetics and stability analyses reveal that because of its large horizontal velocity shear southwest of Taiwan, the northern branch of KLC is strongly unstable and the barotropic instability of KLC constitutes the primary generation mechanism for the CE. After CE is generated, it quickly grows and gradually migrates southward, which in turn facilitates the detachment of AE from KLC. The intrinsic relationship between KLC and CE explains well why eddy pairs are commonly observed in the region southwest of Taiwan.