Seasonal variations of sea level anomaly in the subtropical front zone based on satellite-derived data from 2003–2009
Keywords:
sea surface temperature front, air-sea heat flux, steric heightAbstract
We investigated seasonal variations in the sea level anomaly in the northwestern Pacific subtropical front zone using weekly satellite-derived products and in situ observations from 2003 to 2009. The sea level anomalies had different seasonal cycles in the cold, front and warm zones. In the former two zones, peak values appeared (∼15 cm) in July–August and hollow values (∼−10 cm) in February–March; in the warm zone, sea level anomalies had no apparent seasonal variations. We found that the correlation between sea level anomaly and sea surface temperature reached values of 0.76 in the cold and front zones, but only 0.38 in the warm zone. The steric height anomaly explained 70% variances of sea level anomaly in the former two zones but only 25% in the warm zone. We examined the mechanisms of the different patterns of sea level anomaly variation among the three different zones and concluded that the steric height anomaly induced by air–sea heat exchanges controlled the seasonal variations of sea level anomaly in the former two zones, while the barotropic term accompanied with subtropical countercurrent lead to the obscure seasonal variations in the warm zone. These high frequency variations merit future study.
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