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  • Special Section: Original Article
  • Regional Environmental Oceanography in the South China Sea and Its Adjacent Areas (REO-SCS): II
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A case study of near-inertial oscillation in the South China Sea using mooring observations and satellite altimeter data

Journal of Oceanography volume 67, pages 677–687 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

A near-inertial oscillation (NIO) burst event in the west South China Sea (SCS) was observed by an upward-looking mooring Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) in summer 2004. The mooring station was located at 13.99°N, 110.52°E. The spectral analysis reveals that typhoon Chanchu is a major mechanism in triggering the NIO burst event. Before typhoon Chanchu passed over, the NIO signals were quite weak. The NIO band becomes the most energetic constituent of the circulation during the typhoon-wake period. The average peak power density (PD) reaches (5.3 ± 2.6) × 102 cm2 s−2 (cycles per hour, cph)−1 with a maximum value of 9.0 × 102 cm2 s−2 cph−1, i.e., 3.1 times higher than that of diurnal tide (DT), (1.7 ± 0.5) × 102 cm2 s−2 cph−1. At the upper (80 m) and sub-upper (208 m) layers, the central frequency of the NIO band is 0.022 cph with a blueshift of about 9% above the inertial frequency f (0.02015 cph). At the lower layer (400 m), the central frequency of the NIO band is 0.021 cph with a blueshift of about 4% above the inertial frequency. The blueshifts are explained partially by the Doppler shift induced by the vorticity of mesoscale eddies. During the after-typhoon period, a resonance-like process between NIO and DT is observed in the upper layer. As the NIO frequency approaches the DT subharmonic frequency (0.5K1), the PD of the NIO band rises sharply accompanied by a sharp drop of the PD of the DT band. The PD ratio of the two bands increases from 4.5 during the typhoon-wake period to 8 during the after-typhoon period, indicating the effect of the parametric subharmonic instability (PSI) mechanism.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China through project 40976013 (for Sun and Hu) and 40830851 (for Wang), the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) project 2011CB403504 (for Wang), and the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service Ocean Remote Sensing Program 3000-11-03241 (for Zheng and Tai). The MADT data are downloaded from the website of the Archiving, Validation and Interpretation of Satellite Oceanographic data (Aviso). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The authors appreciate helpful comments by three anonymous reviewers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, Guangdong, China

    Lu Sun & Dongxiao Wang

  2. South China Sea Environment Monitoring Center, South China Sea Branch of State Oceanic Administration, Guangzhou, 510301, Guangdong, China

    Lu Sun

  3. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA

    Quanan Zheng

  4. State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, Fujian, China

    Quanan Zheng, Jianyu Hu & Zhenyu Sun

  5. NOAA NESDIS, WWBG, Camp Springs, MD, 20746, USA

    Chang-Kuo Tai

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  1. Lu Sun
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  2. Quanan Zheng
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  3. Dongxiao Wang
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  4. Jianyu Hu
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Correspondence to Quanan Zheng.

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Sun, L., Zheng, Q., Wang, D. et al. A case study of near-inertial oscillation in the South China Sea using mooring observations and satellite altimeter data. J Oceanogr 67, 677–687 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10872-011-0081-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10872-011-0081-9

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