《Impacts of a wind stress and a buoyancy flux on the seasonal variation of mixing layer depth in the South China Sea》.pdfVIP

Acta Oceanol. Sin ., 2013, Vol. 32, No. 9, P. 30-37 DOI: 10.1007/s13131-013-0349-6 E-mail: hyxbe@263.net Impacts of a wind stress and a buoyancy flux on the seasonal variation of mixing layer depth in the South China Sea 1∗ 2 3 1 4 5 2 XIAO Xianjun , WANG Dongxiao , ZHOU Wen , ZHANG Zuqiang , QIN Yinghao , HE Na , ZENG Lili 1 National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100081, China 2 State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China 3 Guy Carpenter Asia-Pacific Climate Impact Centre, School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 00852, China 4 National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center, Beijing 100081, China 5 Beijing Meteorological Station, Beijing 100089, China Received 21 March 2012; accepted 24 September 2012 ©The Chinese Society of Oceanography and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013 Abstract The seasonal variation of mixing layer depth (MLD) in the ocean is determined by a wind stress and a buoy- ance flux. A South China Sea (SCS) ocean data assimilation system is used to analyze the seasonal cycle of its MLD. It is found that the variability of MLD in the SCS is shallow in summer and deep in winter, as is the case in general. Owing to local atmosphere forcing and ocean dynamics, the seasonal variability shows a regional characteristic in the SCS. In the northern SCS, the MLD is shallow in summer and deep in winter, affected coherently by the wind stress and the buoyance flux. The variation of MLD in the west is close to that in the central SCS, influenced by the advection of strong western boundary currents. The eastern SCS presents an annual cycle, which is deep in summer and shallow in winter, primarily impacted by a heat flux on the air-sea inte