[1] Numerous mesoscale eddies occur each year in the South China Sea (SCS), but their statistical characteristics are still not well documented. A Pacific basin-wide threedimensional physical-biogeochemical model has been developed and the result in the SCS subdomain is used to quantify the eddy activities during the period of 1993-2007. The modeled results are compared with a merged and gridded satellite product of sea level anomaly by using the same eddy identification and tracking method. On average, there are about 32.9 ± 2.4 eddies predicted by the model and 32.8 ± 3.4 eddies observed by satellite each year, and about 52% of them are cyclonic eddies. The radius of these eddies ranges from about 46.5 to 223.5 km, with a mean value of 87.4 km. More than 70% of the eddies have a radius smaller than 100 km. The mean area covered by these eddies each year is around 160,170 km 2 , equivalent to 9.8% of the SCS area with water depths greater than 1000 m. Linear relationships are found between eddy lifetime and eddy magnitude and between eddy vertical extent and eddy magnitude, showing that strong eddies usually last longer and penetrate deeper than weak ones. Interannual variations in eddy numbers and the total eddy-occupied area indicate that eddy activities in the SCS do not directly correspond to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation events. The wind stress curls are thought to be an important but not the only mechanism of eddy genesis in the SCS.

Coastal upwelling ecosystems are among the most productive ecosystems in the world, meaning that their response to climate change is of critical importance. Our understanding of climate change impacts on marine ecosystems is largely limited to the open ocean, mainly because coastal upwelling is poorly reproduced by current earth system models. Here, a high-resolution model is used to examine the response of nutrients and plankton dynamics to future climate change in the California Current System (CCS). The results show increased upwelling intensity associated with stronger alongshore winds in the coastal region, and enhanced upper-ocean stratification in both the CCS and open ocean. Warming of the open ocean forces isotherms downwards, where they make contact with water masses with higher nutrient concentrations, thereby enhancing the nutrient flux to the deep source waters of the CCS. Increased winds and eddy activity further facilitate upward nutrient transport to the euphotic zone. However, the plankton community exhibits a complex and nonlinear response to increased nutrient input, as the food web dynamics tend to interact differently. This analysis highlights the difficulty in understanding how the marine ecosystem responds to a future warming climate, given to range of relevant processes operating at different scales.

A high-resolution, 3-dimensional primitive equation model is used to investigate the crossshelf exchange in the East China Sea (ECS). Favorable comparisons between field data and model simulations from both climatological run and hindcast run for 2006 indicate that the model has essential skills in capturing the key physics of the ECS. Temporal and spatial variations of the cross-shelf exchanges are further analyzed. It was demonstrated from both observations and simulations that in 2006 high saline water could be delivered to the north of the Changjiang River mouth (near 32 N) as a result of stronger than typical cross-shelf exchanges at the shelf break and flows through the Taiwan Strait with an annual mean rate of 2.59 and 1.83 Sv, respectively. A few new places at the shelf break were also identified where persistent and vigorous onshore or offshore exchanges occur throughout the year. Cross-shelf exchange is largely determined by the along-shelf geostrophic balance with weak seasonality, which is modulated in upper layers by northeasterly monsoon from early-fall to late-spring and at seabed by bottom friction during December-January, May, and August-September. Nonlinear effect, with strong spatial variations and intraseasonal variability, is a secondary but persistent contributor to the net seaward transport, except for northeast of Taiwan where the nonlinear effect becomes significant but more varied.