The Formation and Circulation of the Intermediate Water in the Japan Sea

In order to clarify the formation and circulation of the Japan/East Sea Intermediate Water (JESIW) and the Upper portion of the Japan Sea Proper Water (UJSPW), numerical experiments have been carried out using a 3-D ocean circulation model. The UJSPW is formed in the region southeast off Vladivostok between 41°N and 42°N west of 136°E. Taking the coastal orography near Vladivostok into account, the formation of the UJSPW results from the deep water convection in winter which is generated by the orchestration of fresh water supplied from the Amur River and saline water from the Tsushima Warm Current under very cold conditions. The UJSPW formed is advected by the current at depth near the bottom of the convection and penetrates into the layer below the JESIW. The origin of the JESIW is the low salinity coastal water along the Russian coast originated by the fresh water from the Amur River. The coastal low salinity water is advected by the current system in the northwestern Japan Sea and penetrates into the subsurface below the Tsushima Warm Current region forming a subsurface salinity minimum layer. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Stratified convection with multiple states

A simplified box model of the cooling of a salt-stratified ocean is analyzed analytically and numerically. A large isothermal basin of salt water has a layer of fresh water at the surface. Beside this is a small basin, cooled from above and connected to the large basin by horizontal tubes at the top, middle and bottom. For small cooling rate, fresh water enters the small basin, is cooled and leaves through the middle tube. For greater cooling rate, the fresh water leaves the small basin through the middle and bottom tube. If the top tube is smaller than the deeper tubes and the fresh water layer is sufficiently shallow, flow in the middle tube reverses at a critical cooling rate. In this case, a mixture of salt and fresh water is cooled and leaves the bottom tube. Increased cooling produces much greater flow rate; consequentially temperature increases rather than decreases in the small basin. A relaxation heat flow condition results in multiple equilibria. One of the stable modes has fresh surface water descending in the small basin and flowing out through the middle and bottom tube. The other has a greater rate of flow of both fresh and salty water (through the middle tube) into the basin with the flow of mixed salty water out of the bottom tube. Implications for deep convection in the ocean are discussed.     

Observations of the Labrador Sea eddy field

This paper is an observational study of small-scale coherent eddies in the Labrador Sea, a region of dense water formation thought to be of considerable importance to the North Atlantic overturning circulation. Numerical studies of deep convection emphasize coherent eddies as a mechanism for the lateral transport of heat, yet their small size has hindered observational progress. A large part of this paper is therefore devoted to developing new methods for identifying and describing coherent eddies in two observational platforms, current meter moorings and satellite altimetry. Details of the current and water mass structure of individual eddy events, as they are swept past by an advecting flow, can then be extracted from the mooring data. A transition is seen during mid-1997, with long-lived boundary current eddies dominating the central Labrador Sea year-round after this time, and convectively formed eddies similar to those seen in deep convection modeling studies apparent prior to this time. The TOPEX / Poseidon altimeter covers the Labrador Sea with a loose “net” of observations, through which coherent eddies can seem to appear and disappear. By concentrating on locating and describing anomalous events in individual altimeter tracks, a portrait of the spatial and temporal variability of the underlying eddy field can be constructed. The altimeter results reveal an annual “pulsation” of energy and of coherent eddies originating during the late fall at a particular location in the boundary current, pinpointing the time and place of the boundary current-type eddy formation. The interannual variability seen at the mooring is reproduced, but the mooring site is found to be within a localized region of greatly enhanced eddy activity. Notably lacking in both the annual cycle and interannual variability is a clear relationship between the eddies or eddy energy and the intensity of wintertime cooling. These eddy observations, as well as hydrographic evidence, suggest an active role for boundary current dynamics in shaping the energetics and water mass properties of the interior region.     

0220号热带风暴(米克拉)特征分析

南海是热带气旋活动较为频繁的地区之一。该地区因其独特的地理环境和复杂的热带大气环流系统，在热带气旋预报工作上存在一定的困难。本文在分析一些气象图表资料的基础上，对2002年第20号热带风暴(米克拉)的形成、发展及消亡进行了探讨和研究。主要从形成的背景环流，气旋的结构等方面入手，总结出一些该气旋所具备韵特有流场，从而为以后的南海自生热带气旋预报工作积累一定经验。     

南京汤山温泉区地热水成因模式分析

汤山温泉是中国四大著名温泉疗养胜地之一,阐明其成因模式对于该温泉区的进一步开发和热水资源的可持续利用具有一定意义。基于硅-焓图解法和水文地球化学方法对其进行了系统研究,结果表明该区热储温度为90℃,岩溶热水与岩溶冷水、孔隙潜水和地表水之间在水化学和同位素组成上存在明显差异,地热井深度越大,冷水混入相对较少,地热水温度相对较高。经分析,该地热系统成因上属于中低温对流型。其补给区主要来自汤山山体(宁镇山区)及句容盆地东侧茅山山脉,循环深度为2.6~2.9 km,地热水通过汤山-东昌街断裂在浅部与区内NW向断裂、NE向断裂交汇形成温泉水。     

泰安地震台重力扰动现象研究

利用滤波分析法对山东泰安地震台重力固体潮观测的分析表明,重力观测中存在大量高频扰动信号.通过与气象观测实况资料的对比发现,这些异常扰动信号除了受台风等热带气旋影响外,还明显与“冷空气”过境等区域强对流天气有关. 对泰安台JCZ-1甚宽频带地震仪观测资料的频谱分析和滤波处理进一步表明,区域强对流天气及台风对重力仪的影响频段均在1—8 s范围内,其中2—6 s区间影响最为显著; 强对流天气过程触发的扰动信号范围可以在1—16 s,但8 s后扰动信号对重力仪观测基本不造成影响,即重力仪对高频扰动信号的响应存在8 s的截止周期.JCZ-1甚宽频带地震仪的波谱分析还反映出扰动信号的动态特征,即强对流天气产生的扰动信号在发展、传播过程中,首先出现的信号频率较高,随着时间推移信号逐渐向低频演化,揭示了干扰信号传播的多普勒效应以及扰动信号激发源的移动特性.     

Cyclicity in the Main and Upper Zones of the Bushveld Complex, South Africa: Crystallization from a Zoned Magma Sheet

The major element composition of plagioclase, pyroxene, olivine,and magnetite, and whole-rock ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr data are presented forthe uppermost 2·1 km of the layered mafic rocks (upperMain Zone and Upper Zone) at Bierkraal in the western BushveldComplex. Initial ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios are near-constant (0·7073± 0·0001) for 24 samples and imply crystallizationfrom a homogeneous magma sheet without major magma rechargeor assimilation. The 2125 m thick section investigated in drillcore comprises 26 magnetitite and six nelsonite (magnetite–ilmenite–apatite)layers and changes up-section from gabbronorite (An₇₂ plagioclase;Mg# 74 clinopyroxene) to magnetite–ilmenite–apatite–fayaliteferrodiorite (An₄₃; Mg# 5 clinopyroxene; Fo₁ olivine). The overallfractionation trend is, however, interrupted by reversals characterizedby higher An% of plagioclase, higher Mg# of pyroxene and olivine,and higher V₂O₅ of magnetite. In the upper half of the successionthere is also the intermittent presence of cumulus olivine andapatite. These reversals in normal fractionation trends definethe bases of at least nine major cycles. We have calculateda plausible composition for the magma from which this entiresuccession formed. Forward fractional crystallization modelingof this composition predicts an initial increase in total iron,near-constant SiO₂ and an increasing density of the residualmagma before magnetite crystallizes. After magnetite beginsto crystallize the residual magma shows a near-constant totaliron, an increase in SiO₂ and decrease in density. We explainthe observed cyclicity by bottom crystallization. Initiallymagma stratification developed during crystallization of thebasal gabbronorites. Once magnetite began to crystallize, periodicdensity inversion led to mixing with the overlying magma layer,producing mineralogical breaks between fractionation cycles.The magnetitite and nelsonite layers mainly occur within fractionationcycles, not at their bases. In at least two cases, crystallizationof thick magnetitite layers may have lowered the density ofthe basal layer of melt dramatically, and triggered the proposeddensity inversion, resulting in close, but not perfect, coincidenceof mineralogical breaks and packages of magnetitite layers. KEY WORDS: layered intrusion; mineral chemistry; isotopes; magma; convection; differentiation     

A large class of non-zonal oceanic flows satisfying the arnold-blumen sufficient condition for stability

Abstract

Recently Andrews has discussed an example of a topographically-forced non-zonal now satisfying the Arnold-Blumen sufficient condition for stability. At large distances from the topographic centre this flow becomes purely zonal and westward. After underlining the richness of solutions of the Andrews model, the present paper goes on to show that Andrews' technique can be applied successfully to a model where the vertical profile of static stability resembles those found in the ocean. In particular we obtain a large class of hydrodynamic stable flows, forced by the bottom topography, for continuously stratified fluids (two layers each with uniform Brunt-Väisälä frequency).     

Circulation in the Gulf of Aqaba (Red Sea) during winter—spring

This study is devoted to oceanographic features of the semi-enclosed Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea. The data were recorded in winter—spring 1999 on the R/V Meteor cruise leg 44/2. Temperature and salinity profiles were measured at six positions (I—VI). The shipboard NarrowBand Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (NB ADCP) 150 kHz continuously recorded current profiles down to 350 m en route. The research revealed that the current near the Strait of Tiran front (position VI) represents a semidiurnal signal of an internal tide wave (∼12 h period; 0.2 ms⁻¹ amplitude) that might be generated by the barotropic tide at the sill of the Strait. A sequence of cyclonic and anticyclonic eddy pairs is found along the axis of the Gulf of Aqaba during winter-spring seasons. These sub-mesoscale signals are dominant above the main thermocline and might be caused by wind forcing and the narrowness of the Gulf; it might remain in other seasons with different dimensions in relation to the depth of thermocline. The total diameter of each pair was twice the baroclinic Rossby radius (R ≈ 10 km). A single anti-cyclonic eddy was observed in the upper 300 m in the northern tip of the Gulf with a diameter of about 5–8 km.