Alongshore and cross-shore circulations and their response to winter monsoon in the western East China Sea

• Joint analysis of currents reveals features of weak cross-shore currents.
• Coherent spatial structure and temporal variation of currents are revealed.
• Cross-shore currents are intrinsically linked with alongshore currents.
• Vertical structure is determined by pressure gradient and modified by friction.
• Currents follow the rhythm of wind stress, sea level and sea level difference at a synoptic scale.

An array of four bottom-mounted acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) were deployed during the winter of 2008 (28 December 2008 to 12 March 2009) along a cross-shelf section in the western East China Sea to investigate the winter circulation and its response to wind. During the observation period, the observed subtidal currents exhibit coherent spatial structure and temporal variation in terms of their mean (seasonal), trend (intra-seasonal), and synoptic variability. The subtidal currents are polarized roughly in the alongshore direction parallel to local isobaths, and the weak cross-shore current is closely linked to the alongshore component. The temporal variation of the currents follows the rhythm of wind stress, sea level, and sea level difference at the synoptic scale.The mean currents are basically composed of two anti-parallel currents in the alongshore direction: the East China Sea coastal current (ECSCC) flows southwestward along the inner shelf and the Taiwan warm current (TWC) flows in the opposite direction along the outer-shelf. The strongest current occurs over the mid-shelf as a coastal jet. The intra-seasonal currents exhibit an expansion and intensification of the ECSCC along with shrinking and weakening the alongshore component of the TWC. There is a significant increase in onshore current particularly over the mid-shelf.The fluctuations of synoptic currents show a significant positive correlation with wind stress, and the fluctuations are negatively correlated with sea level and sea level difference. The coherent spatial structure of the currents indicates that the depth-independent column motion is related to the sea level difference through a barotropic pressure gradient. The vertical shear of currents is related to the density-related baroclinic pressure gradient in the whole water column and to the friction within the surface and bottom boundary layers.