An estimate of the cross-frontal transport at the shelf break of the East China Sea with the Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model

Abstract

The Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model (FVCOM) is used to estimate the onshore cross-frontal transport at the shelf break of the East China Sea. Boundary conditions of FVCOM are provided by the Princeton Ocean Model simulating ocean currents in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea realistically. One advantage of this study is that the unstructured triangular cell grid of FVCOM resolves complex bottom topography that may trigger Kuroshio frontal waves. It is anticipated that these nonlinear frontal waves enhance the exchange of seawater between the Kuroshio and shelf regions. Kuroshio frontal waves in the model are excited around the location where the bottom slope changes abruptly, and have the phase speed and amplitude consistent with those observed in the East China Sea. In addition, the model reproduces the onshore transport associated with growing frontal waves in the upper and lower layers. On the basis of passive tracer experiments, the annually averaged onshore-transport integrated along the shelf break is estimated to be 0.85 × 106 m3/s.