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An overview of 10-year observation of the South China Sea branch of the Pacific to Indian Ocean throughflow at the Karimata Strait

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Abstract

Besides the Indonesian throughflow (ITF), the South China Sea throughflow (SCSTF) also contributes to the water transport from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean. However, this South China Sea (SCS) branch at the Karimata Strait is poorly observed until 2007, even though its importance has been suggested by numerical studies for decades. In this paper, we review the nearly 10-year field measurement in the Karimata Strait by the execution of the projects of “SCS-Indonesian Seas Transport/Exchange (SITE) and Impacts on Seasonal Fish Migration” and “The Transport, Internal Waves and Mixing in the Indonesian Throughflow regions (TIMIT) and Impacts on Marine Ecosystem”, which extend the observations from the western Indonesian seas to the east to include the main channels of the ITF, is introduced. Some major achievements from these projects are summarized.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate the captain and the crews of the R/V Baruna Jaya VIII, III, IV, I, Geomarin III and Madidihang for their skillful operation during the voyages and their cooperation in fieldwork, and we thank all participants in the cruises.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. First Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Qingdao, 266061, China

    Zexun Wei, Shujiang Li, Yonggang Wang, Bin Fan, Tengfei Xu & Guohong Fang

  2. Laboratory for Regional Oceanography and Numerical Modeling, Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao), Qingdao, 266237, China

    Zexun Wei, Shujiang Li, Yonggang Wang, Bin Fan, Tengfei Xu & Guohong Fang

  3. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, 20742, USA

    R. Dwi Susanto

  4. Faculty of Earth Sciences and Technology, Bandung Institute of Technology, Bandung, 40116, Indonesia

    R. Dwi Susanto

  5. Agency for Marine & Fisheries Research, Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, Jakarta, 14430, Indonesia

    Budi Sulistiyo, T. Rameyo Adi, Agus Setiawan & A. Kuswardani

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  1. Zexun Wei
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  2. Shujiang Li
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  3. R. Dwi Susanto
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  4. Yonggang Wang
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  5. Bin Fan
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  7. Budi Sulistiyo
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  9. Agus Setiawan
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  10. A. Kuswardani
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  11. Guohong Fang
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Correspondence to Zexun Wei.

Additional information

Foundation item: The National Key Research and Development Program of China under contract No. 2016YFC1402604; the Marine S&T Fund of Shandong Province for Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao) under contract No. 2015ASKJ01; the SOA Program on Global Change and Air-Sea Interactions under contract Nos GASI-IPOVAI-03, GASI-IPOVAI-02 and GASI-IPOVAI-01-02; the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract Nos 40476025, 41506036 and 41876027; the NSFC-Shandong Joint Fund for Marine Science Research Centers under contract No. U1606405; the Office of Naval Research of United States under contract No. N00014-08-01-0618; the China-Indonesia Maritime Cooperation Fund.

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Wei, Z., Li, S., Susanto, R.D. et al. An overview of 10-year observation of the South China Sea branch of the Pacific to Indian Ocean throughflow at the Karimata Strait. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 38, 1–11 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-019-1410-x

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