The experimental study on current fronts during the southwest monsoon in the coastal waters of Khanh Hoa province

Abstract

Calculation of current fronts plays the important role in oceanographic research. It will be the key for calculating other fronts in oceanography as temperature, salinity… However, up to now calculation of current fronts in the coastal areas has not been interested specially, because it may be not enough samples. Some characteristics of gradient of the current components and their fronts were defined depending on newly observed data in July and August 2010. Values of gradient of longitudinal current component were higher and more variant than latitudinal current component. Values of gradient module of longitudinal and latitudinal current components varied from 0.03 to 9.76 cm/s/km and from 0.04 to 6.94 cm/s/km respectively. Average values of gradient of these components were very small, from 0.74 to 1.40 cm/s/km (latitudinal component) and from 1.36 to 2.01 cm/s/km (longitudinal component). Gradient module near the surface layers (2 m and 5 m of depth) was higher and more variant than that at deeper layers (25 m and 50 m). The front index, which current components begin forming fronts, was defined by more 2.44 cm/s/km and more 3.94 cm/s/km for longitudinal and latitudinal current component correspondingly depended on statistical gradients.