Satellite-derived sea surface temperature front in the Taiwan Strait

Abstract

ABSTRACT The sea surface temperature (SST) front we considered here is the boundary separating the northern colder water and southern warm water in the Taiwan Strait (TS). It always coincides with the northern edge of the permanent warm current along the deep Peng-Hu Channel northward into the TS. The NOAA/AVHRR SST data during 1997-2000 is used to see the variability of this SST front. From gradient empirical orthogonal function (GEOF) analysis of the SST data we found that the SST front is weaker in summer and much stronger in winter. Meanwhile, the SST front was weaker in 1997 El Nino summer than 1998 La Nina summer, while stronger in 1997/1998 El Nino winter than 1998/1999 La Nina winter. The ERS-2 scatterometer wind stress data is also applied in this study, it is suggested that the wind variation seems to be the main factor to induce the above variation of the SST pattern in the TS. Keywords: sea surface temperature front, empirical orthogonal function, El Nino-Southern Oscillation, satellite data, Taiwan Strait