Publication Date:
2022-10-26
Description:
Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 125(7), (2020): e2019JC015676, doi:10.1029/2019JC015676.
Description:
The temperature‐salinity (T‐S) diagram is widely used in water mass analysis, but the boundaries between water masses are vaguely distinguished by conventional T‐S‐based methods. Herein, we propose a new method based on the potential density‐potential spicity (sigma‐pi) diagram. The new method has been applied to the conductivity‐temperature‐depth data collected in the northern South China Sea during a spring cruise in 2011. The water masses in the study region are classified into 13 types according to both the standard deviation of potential spicity in each potential density layer and the water volumetric distribution in the sigma‐pi space. The results suggest that this new method is reasonable and robust for classifying water masses in the sigma‐pi space as compared to previous methods based on the traditional T‐S space. In addition, the westward intrusion of the West Pacific Ocean water to the northern South China Sea can be clearly detected by the tongue‐like potential spicity structure and relatively high potential spicity patches on potential density layers, further verifying the robustness and efficiency of our method in the water mass analysis.
Description:
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (91958203, 41776027, and 11732010) and the National Basic Research Program of China (2015CB954004 and 2009CB421208). Funding of Y.G.'s cotutelle doctoral research project by Région Hauts‐de‐France and Xiamen University is acknowledged. All the cruise participants are appreciated. We also thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.
Description:
2020-12-20
Keywords:
Water mass
;
Spicity
;
Northern South China Sea
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
