Winter Meso-Scale Shear Front in the Yellow Sea and Its Sedimentary Effects

In this paper, the authors explored the presence of shear fronts between the Yellow Sea Coastal Current （YSCC） and the monsoon-strengthened Yellow Sea Warm Current （YSWC） in winter and their sedimentary effects within the shear zone based on a fully validated numerical model. This work added the wind force to a tidal model during simulating the winter baroclinic circulation in the Yellow Sea. The results indicate that the YSWC is significantly strengthened by wind-driven compensation due to a northeast monsoon during winter time. When this warm current encounters the North Shandong-South Yellow Sea coastal current, there is a strong reverse shear action between the two current systems, forming a reverse-S-shaped shear front that begins near 34°N in the south and extends to approximately 38°N, with an overall length of over 600km. The main driving force for the formation of this shear front derives from the circulation system with the reverse flow. In the shear zone, temperature and salinity gradients increase, flow velocities are relatively small and the flow direction on one side of the shear zone is opposite to that on the other side. The ver- tical circulation structure is complicated, consisting of a series ofmeso- and small-scale anti-clockwise eddies. Particularly, this shear effect significantly hinders the horizontal exchange of coastal sediments carried by warm currents, resulting in fine sediments deposi- tion due to the weak hydrodynamic regime.