Marine Hydrography

Study on characteristics of mean flow and tidal currents in the southwestern Taiwan Strait based on shipboard ADCP observations in summertime

  • SHEN Junqiang ,
  • SUN Haowei ,
  • PAN Aijun ,
  • Qiu Yun
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  • The Third Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Xiamen 361005, China

Received date: 2015-07-28

  Online published: 2016-05-27

Supported by

Scientific Research Foundation of Third Institute of Oceanography, SOA (2013008); Chinese Academy of Sciences Strategic Leading Science and Technology Projects (XDA1102030104); National Natural Science Foundation of China (41506014, 41176031); Global Change and Ocean-atmosphere Interaction (GASI-03-01-01-03); National Basic Research Program of China (2011CB403502)

Abstract

In this study, we conducted barotropic detiding of the summertime shipboard ADCP (SADCP) dataset in the southern Taiwan Strait (TWS) from June to September during 2004-2013, employing the widely used spatiotemporal fitting by the least squares method (STF-LSM). The results show that the mean flow derived from STF-LSM and that derived from averaged vectors by dataset gridding both flowed northeastward. Moreover, these two mean flows had similar spatial distribution patterns of strong and weak flows, but their maximum velocities were slightly different: 0.46 and 0.34 m·s-1 for the former and the latter, respectively. Besides, the strong currents (about 0.3 m·s-1) were characterized by the narrow mainstream confined around the depth of 30 m off the sea at Dongshan and Longhai as well as the Taiwan Bank (TWB) with drastic topographic change, whereas the weak currents (less than 0.1 m·s-1) were mainly distributed in the central TWB. Estimation of the volume transport based on the above mentioned mean flows revealed similar results, up to (0.71±0.24) ×106 m3·s-1. The strong M2 tidal currents derived from SADCP were near the TWB and extended to the offshore of Dongshan, with a maximum M2 current amplitude as large as ~0.64 m·s-1, which was located in the TWB. The cotidal chart for M2 currents demonstrates the characteristics of progressive wave, which was delayed successively from the southwest to the northeast along the direction of the tidal wave as the wave propagated (about 2 h). Besides, there was a boundary line along northwestward to southeastward direction with ellipticity equal to zero at the offshore of Dongshan. The M2 currents rotated counterclockwise in the southern region of this boundary line and clockwise in the northern region.

Cite this article

SHEN Junqiang , SUN Haowei , PAN Aijun , Qiu Yun . Study on characteristics of mean flow and tidal currents in the southwestern Taiwan Strait based on shipboard ADCP observations in summertime[J]. Journal of Tropical Oceanography, 2016 , 35(3) : 11 -19 . DOI: 10.11978/2015100

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