A remarkable meso-scale anticyclonic vortex pair in the northern part of the South China Sea (SCS) from later August to early September 1994 is documented by the in situ observation data. Their spatial structures were examined in detail from the horizontal and two nearly perpendicular vertical angles of view. The horizontal scales of these two vortices were around 100 km, 50 km, and their vertical scales were about 500 m, 1000 m, respectively. Two 'warm core'structures associated with these two vortices were found in their horizontal and vertical analyses. The closer spacing of these two vortices (namely 60 km), which was smaller than the Rossby radius of deformation, suggested that they might merge with each other during their next evolutionary stages and form into a larger vortex eventually.

Date Published: 14 April 2003
PDF: 16 pages
Proc. SPIE 4899, Atmospheric and Oceanic Processes, Dynamics, and Climate Change, (14 April 2003); doi: 10.1117/12.466580

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4899:
Atmospheric and Oceanic Processes, Dynamics, and Climate Change
Zhaobo Sun; Fei-Fei Jin; Toshiki Iwasaki, Editor(s)