Thermal fronts and cross-frontal heat flux in the southern Huanghai Sea and the East China Sea

Synoptic features in/around thermal fronts and cross-frontal heat fluxes in the southern Huanghai/Yellow Sea and East China Sea (HES) were examined using the data collected from four airborne expendable bathythermograph surveys with horizontal approxmately 35 km and vertical 1 m(from the surface to 400 m deep) spacings. Since the fronts are strongly affected by HES current system, the synoptic thermal features in/around them represent the interaction of currents with surrounding water masses. These features can not be obtained from climatological data. The identified thermal features are listed as follows:(1) multiple boundaries of cold water, asymmetric thermocline intrusion, locally-split front by homogeneous water of approxmately 18℃, and mergence of the front by the Taiwan Warm Current in/around summertime southern Cheju-Changjiang/Yangtze front and Tsushima front; (2) springtime frontal eddy-like feature around Tsushima front; (3) year-round cyclonic meandering and summertime temperature-inversion at the bottom of the surface mixed layer in Cheju-Tsushima front; and (4) multistructure of Kuroshio front. In the Kuroshio front the mean variance of vertical temperature gradient is an order of degree smaller than that in other HES fronts. The southern Cheju-Changjiang front and Cheju-Tsushima front are connected with each other in the summer with comparable cross-frontal temperature gradient. However, cross-frontal heat flux and lateral eddy diffusivity are stronger in the southern Cheju-Changjiang front. The cross-frontal heat exchange is the largest in the mixing zone between the modified Huanghai Sea bottom cold water and the Tsushima Warm Current, which is attributable to enhanced thermocline intrusions.