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Abstract

Our investigations in the northern South China Sea (SCS) have revealed warm-core anticyclonic eddies that had a depressed pycnocline and a high biological productivity and phytoplankton abundance. With an elliptical shape of 420–430 km in major axis and 240–260 km in minor axis, these eddies were formed in the winter as the Kuroshio Current intruded through the Luzon Strait into the SCS under the prevailing northeast monsoon. They were characterized by a deep mixed layer up to 140–180 m, in which nitrate was relatively abundant. Although chlorophyll a concentration per volume of seawater was not always higher inside than outside the eddies, water-column (0–200 m) integrated chlorophyll a concentration and abundances of Synechococcus, coccolithophores, and diatoms were higher inside than outside the eddies. Primary productivity and nitrate-uptake new production inside the eddies were higher than or equal to those outside the eddies. Unlike the mode-water anticyclonic eddy that is biologically productive with a domed shallow seasonal pycnocline, the eddies we investigated had high surface temperatures and depressed pycnoclines in the upper water column. Possible explanations for these biological aspects were that the eddies were at their decaying stage, the eddies re-incorporated intermittently with an intruding Kuroshio branch, or the passage of the prevalent high amplitude internal tides introduced nutrients to the eddies. Frequent occurrences of eddies in oceanic regimes, especially cold eddies, are associated with high biological activity. Some warm eddies, such as these investigated in the present study, also have high biological activities, indicating that more rigorous in situ studies relating to eddy biological activity are needed in ocean regimes such as the SCS, where a half of the eddies are warm eddies.