Impact of Typhoon Chan-hom on sediment dynamics and morphological changes on the East China Sea inner shelf

Abstract

The East China Sea (ECS) inner shelf is highly impacted by tropical cyclones. Due to the limited availability of observations, the sediment dynamics and associated sedimentary process under the impact of typhoons are still poorly understood. In this study, a high-resolution unstructured-grid FVCOM model was employed to investigate the rapid responses of sediment dynamics on the ECS inner shelf to the passage of Typhoon Chan-hom in July 2015. The results indicated that there was an evident asymmetry in sediment dynamics around the typhoon track. During the typhoon, sediments were resuspended in nearshore area and transported downwind with increasing southwestward and seaward sediment flux. The gear-like sediment delivery presented a ratchet effect that induced an evident spatial asymmetry in responses of sediment dynamics and shelf sedimentation to the short-lived typhoon event. The coastal upwelling normally existing in summer was intermittently blocked by the passage of typhoon, and rapidly transited to downwelling, which substantially enhanced the cross-shelf sediment transport. As a result, severe erosions were mainly occurred near the typhoon track within 20-m isobaths, in contrast to newly formed sedimentary layers (~10 cm in thickness) in areas far south of the typhoon track and around the 50-m isobaths. The spatial asymmetry of sedimentary response to the typhoon passage is therefore of importance to locating sediment records that well preserved the typhoon signals. The ratchet effect we proposed provided reasonable interpretations of the spatially asymmetric responses of shelf sedimentations in the northern Gulf of Mexico and the central Great Barrier Reef shelf to tropical cyclones, respectively.