Decreasing trend of kuroshio intrusion and its effect on the chlorophyll-a concentration in the Luzon Strait, South China Sea

Abstract

ABSTRACT Material exchange between oceans and currents is crucial for biogeochemical processes in marginal seas, such as the Kuroshio intrusion in the Luzon Strait, which contributes to nutrient and phytoplankton growth in the adjacent water. Therefore, it is necessary to understand changes in major current systems and their possible effects on marine ecology. In this study, we applied an edge-detection method to satellite-derived sea-surface temperature (SST) images to identify the SST front as the index of Kuroshio intrusion during 1985–2017. Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentrations and geostrophic currents (determined from satellite observations after 1993) were examined by comparing long-term variations related to the Kuroshio front using empirical-mode decomposition analysis. The Kuroshio intrusion into the Luzon Strait gradually decreased after the 1990s, as did the Chl-a concentrations and current speed in the Strait. In contrast, the speed of the Kuroshio Current in the eastern Philippine tended to increase, indicating that the northward Kuroshio Current from the eastern Philippines became stronger, curtailing the westward intrusion of the branch current into the Luzon Strait. The speed of the Kuroshio Current correlated with the bifurcation of the North Equatorial Current (NEC), which is upstream of the Kuroshio Current starting from the southeast Philippines. Therefore, the NEC bifurcation latitude may have shifted more southward, which strengthened the water mass and current speed of the Kuroshio, resulting in decreased westward motion of the Kuroshio through the Luzon Strait. Consequently, the weakening Kuroshio intrusion may have caused a decreasing trend of biogeochemical processes in the South China Sea.