Abstract
Monthly mean sea-levels have annual maxima in August in the northeast Asian marginal seas (NEAMS). Based on satellite altimetry data, the rising rate of the August NEAMS sea-level (ANS, 4.2 mm∙yr−1) is greater than those of the NEAMS (3.6 mm∙yr−1) and global (3.4 mm∙yr−1) annual mean sea-levels. Thus, the interannual variations of ANS are classified as relatively high (period H) and low (period L) years and have been analysed because of the high risk of sea-level fluctuation to the coastal regions in August. In period H, there are large atmospheric pressure gradients between the high pressure zone in the Kuroshio Extension (KE) and the low pressure zone in the west of Taiwan (WT). In period L, the atmospheric pressure gradients are small between the above-mentioned zones. Large atmospheric pressure gradients induce strong west-northwestward wind stresses and more Ekman transport from the northwest Pacific Ocean into the NEAMS. The correlation coefficient between August NEAMS sea-level index (ANSI), which is the difference of atmospheric pressure anomalies between the KE and the WT, and the August NEAMS sea-level anomaly (ANSA) is 0.73. Although there is a significant correlation (coefficient: 0.64) between ANSA and the East Asian summer monsoon index (EASMI), ANSI might be more useful in estimating the variability of ANSA.
Highlights
Sea-level rising due to climate change is seriously threatening the lives of human beings [1]
There are many ongoing studies on sea-level rise caused by thermal expansion and ice sheet melting [3,4], there are few studies on the impacts of wind stress by atmospheric pressure distributions on sea-level variation in marginal seas
The interannual variation in August of sea-levels in the northeast Asian marginal seas (NEAMS) is dominated by the atmospheric pressure gradients between high pressure in the Kuroshio Extension (KE) and low pressure in the west of Taiwan (WT) in the south of the NEAMS
Summary
Sea-level rising due to climate change is seriously threatening the lives of human beings [1]. There are many ongoing studies on sea-level rise caused by thermal expansion and ice sheet melting [3,4], there are few studies on the impacts of wind stress by atmospheric pressure distributions on sea-level variation in marginal seas. Temporal variations of volume transport in the Korea Strait (KS), a major strait in the NEAMS, is influenced significantly by along-strait wind stresses, atmospheric pressures, and sea-level differences between the Pacific and the EJS for timescales longer than 100 days [7]. The surface wind stress plays an important role in both the volume transport and sea-level changes in the marginal seas [8,9,10].
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