Seasonaland Interannual Variation Of Water Transport Through The Karimata Strait

Four Trawl-Resistant Bottom Mounts?TRBM?,with ADCPs embedded,were deployed in the Karimata Strait from November 2008 to June 2015 as part of the South China Sea-Indonesian Seas transport/exchange and Impact on Seasonal Fish Migration?SITE?program,to estimate the volume and property transports between the South China Sea and Indonesian Seas via the Strait.The observed current data reveal that the volume transport through the Karimata Strait has significant seasonal variation.The winter-averaged?from December to February?transport is–1.99 Sv(1Sv=1×10⁶ m³·s^-1),while in boreal summer?from June to August?,the average transport is 0.69 Sv.Moreover,the transport averaged from January 2009 to December2014is–0.74Sv?thepositive/negativevalueindicates northward/southward transport?.May and September are the transition period.In September,the southeasterly trade wind still resides over the strait,driving surface water northward,but the bottom flow has reversed its direction,which is possibly due to the pressure gradient across the strait from north to south.The results of HYCOM assimilation product data are in good agreement with the observation.Using HYCOM product,the average volume,salinity,heat and freshwater transport through the Karimata Strait account for 10.6%,9.9%,11.6%and 26.3%of the total amount of flux entering the South China Sea,respectively.On the interannual scale,the volume transport anomalies through the Karimata Strait is negatively correlated with the Ni?o3.4 index and there is no obvious correlation between volume transport anomalies and DMI.Further analysis proves that local Zonal wind anomalies caused by ENSO are responsible for the interannual anomalies of volume transport through the Karimata Strait.