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Frontiers of Earth Science

ISSN 2095-0195

ISSN 2095-0209(Online)

CN 11-5982/P

Postal Subscription Code 80-963

2018 Impact Factor: 1.205

Front. Earth Sci.    2020, Vol. 14 Issue (2) : 376-383    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-019-0776-6
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Surface currents measured by GPS drifters in Daya Bay and along the eastern Guangdong coast
Yang GAO1, Yongxiang HUANG1, Hongyang LIN1,2, Zhenyu SUN1,2, Jia ZHU1, Jianyu HU1,2()
1. State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China
2. Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Zhuhai 519000, China
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Abstract

GPS-based surface drifters were used to investigate the surface currents in Daya Bay and along the eastern Guangdong coast in China. Surface current vectors were measured based on the GPS location and corresponding time information sent by drifters through the mobile phone network. The analysis of data from 120 drifters, deployed in late spring 2018 in the case-study region, shows that the drifters are generally capable of capturing the surface (tidal and residual) currents. The drifter trajectories suggest an anticlockwise surface current inside Daya Bay and a north-eastward current along the eastern Guangdong coast, where the coastal current along the eastern Guangdong coast is faster than that inside Daya Bay. The surface currents in the investigated region follow an irregular semidiurnal cycle due to the influence of the tidal current, while the currents inside Daya Bay are strongly affected by the topography. According to the harmonic analysis, an irregular semidiurnal type of tidal current is evident at a study grid inside Daya Bay, with an Eulerian residual current speed of 9.0 cm/s and a direction of 276°. The Lagrangian residual current outside Daya Bay moves north-eastward with a mean speed of 22 cm/s along the eastern Guangdong coast, while the current inside Daya Bay moves northward to the bay head with a mean speed of about 8.0 cm/s, which agrees well with the one reported in other literatures.

Keywords drifter      surface current      residual current      Daya Bay      eastern Guangdong coast     
Corresponding Author(s): Jianyu HU   
Online First Date: 15 January 2020    Issue Date: 21 July 2020
 Cite this article:   
Yang GAO,Yongxiang HUANG,Hongyang LIN, et al. Surface currents measured by GPS drifters in Daya Bay and along the eastern Guangdong coast[J]. Front. Earth Sci., 2020, 14(2): 376-383.
 URL:  
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fesci/EN/10.1007/s11707-019-0776-6
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fesci/EN/Y2020/V14/I2/376
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