[1] Evidence for baroclinic tide origin of internal solitary waves (ISWs) in the northeastern South China Sea is presented, based on 116 internal wave packets observed in satellite images from 1995 to 2001. These wave packets can be divided into two types, a single-wave ISW packet containing only one ISW with/without an oscillating tail, and a multiple-wave ISW packet composed of a group of rank-ordered ISWs. All of the 22 single-wave ISW packets occur in the deep water zone. It is suggested that the ISWs, instead of being generated by the lee-wave mechanism, are developed by nonlinear steepening of the baroclinic tides, which are produced by the strong tidal currents flowing over a ridge in Luzon Strait. This suggestion is verified by an ERS-2 SAR image, which records such an evolution process from a baroclinic tide to a single ISW in its spatial domain.

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Variabilities in sea-surface temperature and size of the Western Pacific Warm Pool were tracked with 10 years of satellite multichannel sea-surface temperature observations from 1982 to 1991. The results show that both annual mean sea-surface temperature and the size of the warm pool increased from 1983 to 1987 and fluctuated after 1987. Possible causes of these variations include solar irradiance variabilities, EI Niño-Southern Oscillation events, volcanic activities, and global warming.

Klemas, V., 2015. Remote sensing of floods and flood-prone areas: An overview. Journal of Coastal Research, 31(4), 1005-1013. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.River floods and coastal storm surges affect the lives of more people than most other weather-related disasters. Floods can destroy homes, roads, and bridges; tear out trees; cause mudslides; and take many human lives. During flooding, timely and detailed situation reports are required by disaster management authorities to locate and identify affected areas and to implement damage mitigation. Remote sensing systems on satellites and aircraft can provide much of the required information for delineating the flood-affected areas, assessing the damage, and feeding models that can predict the vulnerability to flooding of inland and coastal areas. In this article, I provide an overview of remote sensing and modeling techniques for forecasting the vulnerability to flooding of an area, determining the extent and intensity of the flooding, and assessing the damage caused by the flood.ADDITIONAL INDEX WORDS: Flood remote sensing, coastal flooding, storm surge, river flooding, flooding vulnerability, flood damage assessment.