Sea surface height variations in the Yellow and East China Seas: 1. Linear response to local wind stress

Abstract

The sea surface height (SSH) variations observed by the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite in the Yellow and East China Seas are examined over the 3 years from 1993 through 1995 assuming a linear response to wind stress across the region. The transfer function relating wind stress to SSH is modeled by a series of increasingly complex functions that gradually allow wind stress over successively broader regions and time periods to influence the SSH solution at a particular point. The SSH response to instantaneous wind stress at the same point in space implies an Ekman transport, but the response explains only a small fraction of the SSH variability. Relating SSH to wind stress averaged over two subregions and including both instantaneous and 12‐hour lagged wind stress indicates that a significant portion of SSH variability responds to winds that are remote in both space and time. An optimal estimation of the transfer function by minimizing the error variance leads to an extended empirical orthogonal function (EEOF) analysis of the wind stress field. The SSH response to each wind mode is determined. The analysis shows the principle variations in the wind stress to consist of northerly wind bursts during winter, which produce large SSH drops in the Bohai Bay and northern Yellow Sea region. The principal wind mode also is significantly related to variations along the shelf break near the Kuroshio Current. The third and fourth wind stress modes indicate the passage of typhoons.