Abstract
Deep sea circulation is important for world climate and has been a substantial research area in ocean science, leading to various breakthroughs and discoveries. With the rapid advance in research on ocean science, these matters have received increasing attention from the oceanography community. In this article, we attempt to convey the progress made in recent years. We first provide an overview of existing observations, theories, and simulations of deep South China Sea circulation. Finally, we discuss remaining issues.
Highlights
Deep sea circulation is important for world climate and has been a substantial research area in ocean science, leading to various breakthroughs and discoveries
Its unique environment plays a significant role in the deep circulation, sediment transport and abyssal carbon cycle, making it a natural platform for multidisciplinary experiments of ocean dynamics, sediment dynamics and biogeochemistry
Given the absence of high-resolution topographic data for the South China Sea (SCS), only the ETOPO datasets can be used to study the deep SCS circulation. This constrains research on its dynamic processes. It is significant for the study of the deep SCS to make supplementary observations of the blank zone and build an integrated high-resolution topography dataset for the SCS
Summary
The deep circulation in the Philippine Basin (upstream of the BC) and its variation and dominant mechanisms are important for volume transport of the deep BC and even deep SCS circulation. The western branch penetrates the Melanesia Basin and goes northwest, where it crosses the equator and enters the eastern Mariana Basin, carrying 4 Sv of deep water It splits again south of the Mariana Basin. To study the western boundary current in the Philippine Basin, a mooring system was deployed off the eastern coast of Bataan Island (Figure 2(a)) in August 2010, and was recovered in April 2011. Chang et al [33] deployed two mooring systems at the BC and Taltung Canyon in April and July 2007, respectively, and recovered them in January 2008 They examined water exchange in the deep Luzon Strait (Figure 2(a)), indicating that the BC was the main passage for the deep Pacific water passing through the Luzon Strait, with volume transport of 1.06±0.44 Sv and intra-seasonal variation (Figure 3). Results at the BC revealed the deep Pacific water penetrated the SCS through the BC with a background current up to 40 cm s−1 and average velocity of 23.1 cm s−1 (Figure 4), much larger than that in the deep open ocean (~1 cm s−1)
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