资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Based on two-year moored measurements in the northeastern South China Sea, contributions of multiscale dynamic processes to steric height (SH) at 60 m are quantified. It shows that on average, root-mean-squared (RMS) SHs of mesoscales, submesoscales, diurnal and semidiurnal internal tides (ITs), and super-tidal internal gravity waves (IGWs) are 7.56, 1.01, 1.19, 2.84, and 1.46 cm, respectively, with their respective relative contributions of 53.8%, 7.2%, 8.5%, 20.2%, and 10.4%. The SHs of ITs and super-tidal IGWs are dominated by stationary and nonstationary components, respectively. Seasonally, mesoscales and submesoscales show larger RMS SHs in winter than summer but the opposite occurs for ITs and super-tidal IGWs. Although the RMS SH of submesoscales exceeds nonstationary ITs in winter, it is much smaller than the sum of nonstationary ITs and super-tidal IGWs. Therefore, to detect submesoscales using SWOT data, approaches to remove the SHs of nonstationary ITs and super-tidal IGWs are called for.