Establishment and adjustment of monsoon-driven circulation in the South China Sea

The mechanisms of establishment and adjustment of the basin-scale circulation in the South China Sea (SCS) during the monsoon-forced spin-up are investigated using a high resolution circulation model in this paper. The process, in which the upper layer in the SCS evolved from the motionless state to the one when the basin-scale circulation initially established, was described, and the participation of various Kelvin and Rossby waves and their traveling time scales in different stages was revealed. It shows that the coastal trapped Kelvin waves and the westward propagating Rossby waves play important roles in the adjustment of the basin-scale circulation. Furthermore, the characteristic timescale of establishment for the basin-scale circulation in the upper layer of the SCS was obtained.