The mechanism of the banded structure of drifting macroalgae in the Yellow Sea

作     者：Yan Li Fangli Qiao Hongyu Ma Qiuli Shao Zhixin Zhang Guansuo Wang Yan Li;Fangli Qiao;Hongyu Ma;Qiuli Shao;Zhixin Zhang;Guansuo Wang

作者机构：First Institute of OceanographyMinistry of Natural ResourcesQingdao 266061China Key Laboratory of Marine Sciences and Numerical ModelingMinistry of Natural ResourcesQingdao 266061China Laboratory for Regional Oceanography and Numerical ModelingPilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology(Qingdao)Qingdao 266037China Institute of Oceanographic InstrumentationShandong Academy of SciencesQilu University of Technology(Shandong Academy of Sciences)Qingdao 266100China 

出 版 物：《Acta Oceanologica Sinica》 (海洋学报（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2021年第40卷第7期

页      面：31-41页

核心收录：

学科分类：0710[理学-生物学] 071001[理学-植物学] 083002[工学-环境工程] 0830[工学-环境科学与工程（可授工学、理学、农学学位）] 07[理学] 08[工学] 09[农学] 0903[农学-农业资源与环境] 0713[理学-生态学] 

基　　金：The National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract No.41821004 the National Program on Global Change and Air-Sea Interaction under contract No.GASI-IPOVAI-05 

主　　题：banded structure stability analysis secondary circulation 

摘      要：At the end of May 2008,a massive bloom of macroalgae occurred in the western Yellow Sea off China and lasted for nearly two months,and annual blooms have occurred since then on. During bloom period,the surface-drifting macroalgae have showed an interesting pattern dominated by a banded structure,and the distance between neighboring bands ranged from hundreds of meters to about 6 km with a peak at 1–1.5 km,which is an order of higher than the scale of Langmuir circulation of 50–100 m. In order to explain this new phenomenon,ocean current data obtained from a Doppler current profiler off Qingdao was used to implement stability analysis. By numerically solving the resulting differential Orr-Sommerfeld equation,the secondary circulation induced from the instability of the Emkan current was found to fit well with the observed spatial scale of the surface-drifting macroalgae’s banded structure. As the wind driven Emkan current exist universally in the global ocean,it is reasonable to conclude that the banded structure with kilometers distance between adjoining bands is ubiquitous. We found a new circulation in the upper ocean which is important for exchange of energy,materials and gas between the upper ocean and subsurface layer.