Acta Oceanologica Sinica最新文献

The influence of Typhoon Kalmaegi on internal waves near the Dongsha Islands in the northeastern South China Sea was investigated using mooring observation data. We observed, for the first time, that the phenomenon of regular variation characteristics of the 14-d spring-neap cycle of diurnal internal tides (ITs) can be regulated by typhoons. The diurnal ITs lost the regular variation characteristics of the 14-d spring-neap cycle during the typhoon period owing to the weakening of diurnal coherent ITs, represented by O₁ and K₁, and the strengthening of diurnal incoherent ITs. Results of quantitative analysis showed that during the pre-typhoon period, time-averaged modal kinetic energy (sum of Modes 1–5) of near-inertial internal waves (NIWs) and diurnal and semidiurnal ITs were 0.62 kJ/m², 5.66 kJ/m², and 1.48 kJ/m², respectively. However, during the typhoon period, the modal kinetic energy of NIWs increased 5.11 times, mainly due to the increase in high-mode kinetic energy. At the same time, the modal kinetic energy of diurnal and semidiurnal ITs was reduced by 68.9% and 20%, respectively, mainly due to the decrease in low-mode kinetic energy. The significantly reduced diurnal ITs during the typhoon period could be due to: (1) strong nonlinear interaction between diurnal ITs and NIWs, and (2) a higher proportion of high-mode diurnal ITs during the typhoon period, leading to more energy dissipation.

The current velocity observation of LADCP (Lowered Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler) has the advantages of a large vertical range of observation and high operability compared with traditional current measurement methods, and is being widely used in the field of ocean observation. Shear and inverse methods are now commonly used by the international marine community to process LADCP data and calculate ocean current profiles. The two methods have their advantages and shortcomings. The shear method calculates the value of current shear more accurately, while the accuracy in an absolute value of the current is lower. The inverse method calculates the absolute value of the current velocity more accurately, but the current shear is less accurate. Based on the shear method, this paper proposes a layering shear method to calculate the current velocity profile by “layering averaging”, and proposes corresponding current calculation methods according to the different types of problems in several field observation data from the western Pacific, forming an independent LADCP data processing system. The comparison results have shown that the layering shear method can achieve the same effect as the inverse method in the calculation of the absolute value of current velocity, while retaining the advantages of the shear method in the calculation of a value of the current shear.

Abstract

The Bohai Sea (BS) is the unique semi-closed inland sea of China, characterized by degraded water quality due to significant terrestrial pollution input. In order to improve its water quality, a dedicated action named “Uphill Battles for Integrated Bohai Sea Management” (UBIBSM, 2018–2020) was implemented by the Chinese government. To evaluate the action effectiveness toward water quality improvement, variability of the satellite-observed water transparency (Secchi disk depth, Z_SD) was explored, with special emphasis on the nearshore waters (within 20 km from the coastline) prone to terrestrial influence. (1) Compared to the status before the action began (2011–2017), majority (87.3%) of the nearshore waters turned clear during the action implementation period (2018–2020), characterized by the elevated Z_SD by 11.6% ± 12.1%. (2) Nevertheless, the improvement was not spatially uniform, with higher Z_SD improvement in provinces of Hebei, Liaoning, and Shandong (13.2% ± 16.5%, 13.2% ± 11.6%, 10.8% ± 10.2%, respectively) followed by Tianjin (6.2% ± 4.7%). (3) Bayesian trend analysis found the abrupt Z_SD improvement in April 2018, which coincided with the initiation of UBIBSM, implying the water quality response to pollution control. More importantly, the independent statistics of land-based pollutant discharge also indicated that the significant reduction of terrestrial pollutant input during the UBIBSM action was the main driver of observed Z_SD improvement. (4) Compared with previous pollution control actions in the BS, UBIBSM was found to be the most successful one during the past 20 years, in terms of transparency improvement over nearshore waters. The presented results proved the UBIBSM-achieved remarkable water quality improvement, taking the advantage of long-term consistent and objective data record from satellite ocean color observation.

Composite analyses were performed in this study to reveal the difference in spring precipitation over southern China during multiyear La Niña events during 1901 to 2015. It was found that there is significantly below-normal precipitation during the first boreal spring, but above-normal precipitation during the second year. The difference in spring precipitation over southern China is correlative to the variation in western North Pacific anomalous cyclone (WNPC), which can in turn be attributed to the different sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) over the Tropical Pacific. The remote forcing of negative SSTA in the equatorial central and eastern Pacific and the local air-sea interaction in the western North Pacific are the usual causes of WNPC formation and maintenance. SSTA in the first spring is stronger than those in the second spring. As a result, the intensity of WNPC in the first year is stronger, which is more likely to reduce the moisture in southern China by changing the moisture transport, leading to prolonged precipitation deficits over southern China. However, the tropical SSTA signals in the second year are too weak to induce the formation and maintenance of WNPC and the below-normal precipitation over southern China. Thus, the variation in tropical SSTA signals between two consecutive springs during multiyear La Niña events leads to obvious differences in the spatial pattern of precipitation anomaly in southern China by causing the different WNPC response.

The southeastern Indian Ocean is characterized by the warm barrier layer (BL) underlying the cool mixed layer water in austral winter. This phenomenon lasts almost half a year and thus provides a unique positive effect on the upper mixed layer heat content through the entrainment processes at the base of the mixed layer, which has not been well evaluated due to the lack of proper method and dataset. Among various traditional threshold methods, here it is shown that the 5 m fixed depth difference can produce a reliable and accurate estimate of the entrainment heat flux (EHF) in this BL region. The comparison between the daily and monthly EHF warming indicates that the account for high-frequency EHF variability almost doubles the warming effect in the BL period, which can compensate for or even surpass the surface heat loss. This increased warming is a result of stronger relative rate of the mixed layer deepening and larger temperature differences between the mixed layer and its immediate below in the daily-resolving data. The interannual EHF shows a moderately increasing trend and similar variabilities to the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), likely because the mixed layer deepening under the positive SAM trend is accompanied by enhanced turbulent entrainment and thus increases the BL warming.

The basal channel is a detailed morphological feature of the ice shelf caused by uneven basal melting. This kind of specifically morphology is widely distributed in polar ice shelves. It is an important research object of sea-ice interaction and plays a vital role in studying the relationship between the ice sheet/ice shelf and global warming. In this paper, high-resolution remote sensing image and ice penetration data were combined to extract the basal channel of the Pine Island Ice Shelf. The depth variation of Pine Island Ice Shelf in the recent 20 years was analyzed and discussed by using ICESat-1, ICESat-2, and IceBridge data. Combined with relevant marine meteorological elements (sea surface temperature, surface melting days, circumpolar deep water and wind) to analyze the basal channel changes, the redistribution of ocean heat is considered to be the most important factor affecting the evolution and development of the basal channel.

As important atmospheric circulation patterns in Northern Hemisphere (NH), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Western Pacific teleconnection (WP) affect the winter climate in Eurasia. In order to explore the combined effects of NAO and WP on East Asian (EA) temperature, the NAO and WP indices are divided into four phases from 1980–2021: the positive NAO and WP phase (NAO+/WP+), the negative NAO and WP phase (NAO−/WP−), the positive NAO and negative WP phase (NAO+/WP−), the negative NAO and positive WP phase (NAO−/WP+). In the phase of NAO+/WP+, the low geopotential height (GH) stays in north of EA at 50°–80°N; the surface air temperature anomaly (SATA) is 0.8–1 °C lower than Southern Asian. In the phase of NAO−/WP−, the center of high temperature and GH locate in the northeast of EA; the cold air spreads to Southern Asia, causing the SATA decreases 1–1.5 °C. In the phase of NAO+/WP−, the high GH belt is formed at 55°–80°N. Meanwhile, the center of high SATA locates in the north of Asia that increases 0.8–1.1 °C. The cold airflow causes temperature dropping 0.5–1 °C in the south of EA. The SATA improves 0.5–1.5 °C in south of EA in the phase of NAO−/WP+. The belt of high GH is formed at 25°–50°N, and blocks the cold air which from Siberia. The NAO and WP generate two warped plate pressure structures in NH, and affect the temperature by different pressure configurations. NAO and WP form different GH, and GH acts to block and push airflow by affecting the air pressure, then causes the temperature to be different from the north and south of EA. Finally, the multiple linear regression result shows that NAO and WP are weakened by each other such as the phase of NAO+/WP+ and NAO−/WP−.

Marine life is very sensitive to changes in pH. Even slight changes can cause ecosystems to collapse. Therefore, understanding the future pH of seawater is of great significance for the protection of the marine environment. At present, the monitoring method of seawater pH has been matured. However, how to accurately predict future changes has been lacking effective solutions. Based on this, the model of bidirectional gated recurrent neural network with multi-headed self-attention based on improved complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise combined with phase space reconstruction (ICPBGA) is proposed to achieve seawater pH prediction. To verify the validity of this model, pH data of two monitoring sites in the coastal sea area of Beihai, China are selected to verify the effect. At the same time, the ICPBGA model is compared with other excellent models for predicting chaotic time series, and root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), and coefficient of determination (R²) are used as performance evaluation indicators. The R² of the ICPBGA model at Sites 1 and 2 are above 0.9, and the prediction errors are also the smallest. The results show that the ICPBGA model has a wide range of applicability and the most satisfactory prediction effect. The prediction method in this paper can be further expanded and used to predict other marine environmental indicators.

The wave power in high potential area of the northern Persian Gulf (near to Iranian coastal areas) is assessed by taking into account the temporal and spatial distributions of wave power for a period of forty years. For this purpose, assimilated wind data of European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting Interim Reanalysis (ERA-Interim), and hydrography data of General Bathymetric Chat of the oceans (GEBCO) are used as SWAN model. Seven locations are investigated in the study area by considering the amount of coefficient of variation, the amount of average annual power, and the short-term and a new long-term (decadal variability index) power stability assessment parameters. The results showed more stability in the eastern parts of the study area and concluded that a narrow line between the point which is in the middle and another point which is in the eastern middle part of the study area may be the best locations for more investigation and the feasibility study for energy converter farms. Also, it is found that the middle part of the study region with about 2.5 kW/m power is the most energetic area. It is concluded that the dominant direction of wave power distribution in all points is the northeast, and this dominant direction has not changed during the forty-year period. It is observed that the mean annual energy increases with a slight slope in the total 40 a, and this increasing trend is more obvious in the fourth decade. Although it is observed that the wave power of the second decade has the most stability and the least variation, the wave power in the fourth decade has the most variation. Moreover, the results showed that the study region’s wave power increase by approximately a mean change rate of 0.027 kW/(m·a); and the maximum change rate of wave power was in the northwest part and the minimum change rate of wave power was in the southeast part which were about 0.036 kW/(m·a) and 0.014 kW/(m·a), respectively.

Taxonomic sufficiency (TS) refers to identifying taxa to a taxonomic level sufficient to detect community changes in stressed environments and may provide a cost-effective approach in routine monitoring programs. However, there is still limited information regarding the seasonal impact of applying TS and its implications for the ecological quality evaluation in the estuarine ecosystem. This study investigated the relationship between the multivariate-AZTI’s Marine Biotic Index (M-AMBI) and environmental variables in three seasons (i.e., spring, summer, and autumn) in the Liaohe River Estuary. We tested the reliability of TS for simplifying the M-AMBI methodology. The results showed that family and genus level data could reproduce the spatial-temporal patterns of community structure at the species level. The M-AMBI values showed a consistent spatial distribution pattern in all sampling seasons, with a decreasing trend with the increasing distance from the estuary mouth. Both genus and family level data performed nearly as well as species level in detecting the seasonal variations of pollutants (i.e., nutrients and total organic content). The family level M-AMBI was feasible to discern stress in the Liaohe River Estuary because of the high aggregation ratios at different taxonomic levels in all sampling seasons. These findings suggest that applying taxonomic sufficiency based on the M-AMBI provides an efficient approach for evaluating ecological quality in the Liaohe River Estuary.