MONITOR SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL PATTERNS OF SUSPENDED SEDIMENTS IN THE EAST CHINA AND YELLOW SEAS USING SEAWIFS DATA
Striking patterns of suspended sediments created by a complex interplay of physical, chemical, biological and geological processes in the East China Sea (ECS) and Yellow Sea (YS) have been investigated using SeaWiFS ocean color imagery. The structure of these patterns can reveal a great deal about the processes underlying their formation. Sea surface temperature (SST) analyzed from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) thermal infrared data and in-situ were used to elucidate the physical factors responsible for the evolution of such patterns in the inner and outer selves areas, whilst concomitant patterns of suspended sediment were tracked from the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) ocean color imagery. A careful analysis of these patterns in conjugation with other data gave birth to the definition of the evolution of suspended sediments (SS) into four stages: (1) Infant Stage, (2) Younger Stage, (3) Mature Stage and (4) Old Stage. Each of these stages experiences the different characteristics of waters and numerous physical mechanisms that control pattern formation during the winter monsoon. Vertical and horizontal profiles of suspended sediments appear to be useful in predicting the evolution of these stages, of these, the younger stage is identified as important candidate to represent the intrusion of Yellow Sea Warm Current (YSWC) to the northwest of the Jeju-Island