Spatiotemporal Characteristics and Volume Transport of Lagrangian Eddies in the Northwest Pacific

Abstract

Mesoscale eddies play a crucial role in the transport of mass, heat, salt and nutrients, exerting significant influence on ocean circulation patterns, biogeochemical processes and the global climate system. Based on Lagrangian-Averaged Vorticity Deviation (LAVD) method, this study applies 27 years (1993–2019) of geostrophic current velocity data to detect Rotationally Coherent Lagrangian Vortices (RCLVs) in the Northwest Pacific (NWP; 10°N–30°N, 115°E–155°E), with the spatiotemporal characteristics of Eulerian Sea Surface Height Eddies (SSH eddies) and RCLVs being compared. A higher number of SSH eddies and RCLVs can be observed in spring and winter, and their inter-annual variations are similar. SSH eddies show higher generation number and larger radius in the Subtropical Countercurrent region, while RCLVs occur more favorably in the ocean basin. The propagation speed distributions of both eddy types are nearly identical and decrease with increasing latitude. Due to the material coherent transport maintained by RCLVs within a finite time interval, the coherent cores of RCLVs are considerably smaller in scale as compared to those of SSH eddies. The average zonal transports induced by SSH eddies and RCLVs are estimated to be −0.82 Sv and −0.51 Sv (1 Sv = 106 m3/s), respectively. For non-overlapping SSH eddies with RCLVs, approximately 80% of the water within the eddy leaks out during the eddy’s lifespan. In the case of overlapping SSH eddies, the ratio of coherent water inside the eddy decreases with increasing radius, and the leakage rate is around 58%. Finally, an examination of 36 shedding RCLVs events from the Kuroshio near the Luzon Strait, which induce an average zonal transport of −0.14 Sv, reveals that 54% of the water within the shedding RCLVs originates from the Kuroshio.

Subsurface temperature estimation of mesoscale eddies in the Northwest Pacific Ocean from satellite observations using a residual muti-channel attention convolution network

“…They play crucial roles in the mid-to long-distance water mass exchange, material and energy transport, and vertical dynamic enhancement (Liu and Tang, 2018;Chen et al, 2023b). As one of the most complex regions in the ocean circulation system, the Northwest Pacific Ocean has a significant number of mesoscale eddies, exerting profound impacts on the distribution of temperature, salinity, and chlorophyll (Xu et al, 2016;Dong et al, 2017;Sun et al, 2022;Yuan and Hu, 2023). For instance, mesoscale eddies induce heat flux anomalies at the sea surface, weakening the upper ocean thermal structure in the Kuroshio Extension region, resulting in a notable decrease in the sea surface temperature (SST) and corresponding reductions in vertical heat transfer (Yang et al, 2018;Shan et al, 2020).…”