Authors: Shihe Ren Jiping Xie Jiang Zhu
Publish Date: 2014/07/16
Volume: 31, Issue: 5, Pages: 1079-1089
Abstract
In summer the Yellow Sea Cold Water Mass YSCWM is a stable water mass of low temperature lying at the bottom of the central Yellow Sea YS It is fringed by some typical tidal fronts which separate deep stratified water on the offshore side from the wellmixed shallow water on the inshore side Three striking fronts—Subei Bank Front SBF Shandong Peninsula Front SPF and Mokpo Front MKF a front off the southwestern tip of the Korean Peninsula—have been identified by various studies from both satellite observations and model results Tide plays an important role in the formation and maintenance of these fronts However it is still a matter of debate as to the roles these two kinds of mechanisms of upwelling and tidal mixing play and how importance they are in the maintenance processes of the above three fronts Basing a nested highresolution model HYCOM the Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model this study focuses on the different mechanisms of tidal effects on the thermal fronts in the YS in summertime Through comparative experiments with and without tidal forcing the results indicate that the MKF is mainly driven by tideinduced upwelling For the SPF tidal mixing is the dominant factor when lower cold water is stirred upwards along the sloping topography of the western YS Meanwhile the combined effect of upwelling and tidal mixing is the main cause of the formation of the SBF Diagnostic analysis of thermal balance shows that horizontal nonlinear advection induced by strong tidal currents also contributes to the thermal balance of frontal areas
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