Objective analysis and classification of the ten-day mean sea surface temperature variation in the East China Sea using singular value decomposition technique

The seasonal changes of the ten-day mean sea surface temperature in the East China Sea for the years 1953–1972 were studied using the singular value decomposition technique. Main results obtained are as follows: In the singular vector analysis of the ten-day mean sea surface temperature in the East China Sea, the first three singular vectors (or seasonal march functions) account for 97.76% of the variance of the data. The geographical distribution in the weightings (or spatial pattern functions) on these vectors shows a remarkable regional organization. An objective classification of the surface water mass in the East China Sea was based on the mode of its seasonal temperature changes. Contribution No. 801 from the Institute of Oceanology, Academia Sinica. An abstract of this paper was presented at an IAPSO Session of XVII IUGG held at Canberra, Australia, December 1979.