Areas of the global major river plumes  

作　　者：KANG Yan PAN Delu BAI Yan HE Xianqiang CHEN Xiaoyan CHEN Chen-Tung Arthur WANG Difeng 

机构地区：[1]Department of Earth Sciences, Zhejiang University [2]State Key Laboratory of Satellite Ocean Environment Dynamics, Second Institute of Oceanography,State Oceanic Administration [3]Institute of Marine Geology and Chemistry, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung

出　　处：《Acta Oceanologica Sinica》2013年第1期79-88,共10页海洋学报（英文版）

基　　金：The National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) under contract No. 2009CB421202;the Public Science and Technology Research Funds Projects of Ocean under contract No. 200905012;the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract Nos41271378, 40976110 and 40706061;the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program) under contract No.2007AA092201

摘　　要：River plumes are the regions where the most intense river-sea-land interaction occurs, and they are char- acterized by complex material transport and biogeochemical processes. However, due to their highly dy- namic nature, global river plume areas have not yet been determined for use in synthetic studies of global oceanography. Based on global climatological monthly averaged salinity data from the NOAA World Ocean Atlas 2009 （WOA09）, and monthly averaged salinity contour maps of the East and South China Seas from the Chinese Marine Atlas, we extract the monthly plume areas of major global rivers using a geographic information system （GIS） technique. Only areas with salinities that are three salinity units lower than the average salinity in each ocean are counted. This conservative estimate shows that the minimum and max- imum monthly values of the total plume area of the world＇s 19 largest rivers are 1.72× 106 kin2 in May and 5.38× 106 klTl2 inAugust. The annual mean area of these river plumes （3.72× 106 knl2） takes up approximately 14.2% of the total continental shelves area worldwide （26.15 × 106 km2）. This paper also presents river plume areas for different oceans and latitude zones, and analyzes seasonal variations of the plume areas and their relationships with river discharge. These statistics describing the major global river plume areas can now provide the basic data for the various flux calculations in the marginal seas, and therefore will be of useful for many oceanographic studies.River plumes are the regions where the most intense river-sea-land interaction occurs, and they are char- acterized by complex material transport and biogeochemical processes. However, due to their highly dy- namic nature, global river plume areas have not yet been determined for use in synthetic studies of global oceanography. Based on global climatological monthly averaged salinity data from the NOAA World Ocean Atlas 2009 （WOA09）, and monthly averaged salinity contour maps of the East and South China Seas from the Chinese Marine Atlas, we extract the monthly plume areas of major global rivers using a geographic information system （GIS） technique. Only areas with salinities that are three salinity units lower than the average salinity in each ocean are counted. This conservative estimate shows that the minimum and max- imum monthly values of the total plume area of the world＇s 19 largest rivers are 1.72× 106 kin2 in May and 5.38× 106 klTl2 inAugust. The annual mean area of these river plumes （3.72× 106 knl2） takes up approximately 14.2% of the total continental shelves area worldwide （26.15 × 106 km2）. This paper also presents river plume areas for different oceans and latitude zones, and analyzes seasonal variations of the plume areas and their relationships with river discharge. These statistics describing the major global river plume areas can now provide the basic data for the various flux calculations in the marginal seas, and therefore will be of useful for many oceanographic studies.

关 键 词：river plume World Ocean Atlas geography information system Changjiang River marginal sea 

分 类 号：P731[天文地球—海洋科学]