Variation of Semidiurnal Internal Tides along the Southeastern Coast of Korea Induced by Typhoons

• Main Authors: Jeong-Yeob Chae, Chanhyung Jeon, Pyeongjoong Kim, Naoki Hirose, Ahyoung Ku, Jae-Hun Park
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-03-01
• Series: Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
• Subjects: semidiurnal internal tides; typhoon; southeast coast of Korea; ADCP observation; data-assimilated numerical model
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/9/3/328

Typhoon-induced strong winds can dramatically change the oceanic environment, occasionally resulting in sudden stratification changes. In July 2015, two consecutive typhoons, Chanhom and Nangka, passed over the Yellow and East/Japan Seas within a week. Remarkable temperature variations were observed near the southeastern coast of Korea, caused by typhoon-induced upwelling and downwelling events, which altered the energy of semidiurnal internal tides. During the typhoon-induced downwelling event, the energy of semidiurnal internal tides near the southeastern coast of Korea varied independently from the barotropic tidal forcing. Data-assimilated numerical simulation results reveal that the pycnocline, which is typically tilted toward the coast, enables the semidiurnal internal tidal energy to propagate toward shallow regions after being generated off the coast. Meanwhile, the downwelling event deepens the pycnocline near the coast and reflects and concentrates the semidiurnal internal tide energy near the bottom off the coast. A simple mechanism using the ratio between the wave characteristic slope and the bottom slope is proposed to explain the observed variations of semidiurnal internal tide energy near the coast. This paper demonstrates a case study showing that typhoon passage can modify the energetics of internal tides, which has the potential to cause unusual short-term coastal environmental changes.