Strong southward transport events due to typhoons in the Taiwan Strait

Abstract

Transport through the Taiwan Strait under the influence of five typhoons was investigated using both buoy observations and numerical model simulations during the period of 27 August to 5 October 2005. The results show that the effects of typhoons on the Taiwan Strait and its adjacent sea area caused strong southward transport events in the Taiwan Strait, which changed the direction of the Taiwan Strait northward transport temporarily. Typhoon-generated local wind stress and/or along-strait water level gradient were the direct driving factors in these southward transport events. The numerical results show that the Coriolis force made a negative contribution to these events and the contribution of the along-strait momentum gradient was insignificant. Copyright 2009 by the American Geophysical Union.