Warm water wake off northeast Vietnam in the South China Sea

Due to orographic blockage, a weak wind wake occurs in summer off northeast Vietnam in the South China Sea. Under the wind wake, warm water is observed from both high-resolution satellite data and hydrographic observations. The wake of warm water forms in June, continues to mature in July and August, starts to decay in September, and disappears in October. The warm water wake also shows robust diurnal variation — it intensifies during the day and weakens in the night. Warm water wakes can be generated through wind-induced mixing and thermal (latent heat flux) processes. In this paper, a mixed layer model is used to evaluate the relative importance of the two processes on seasonal and diurnal timescales, respectively. The results demonstrate that thermal processes make a greater contribution to the wake than wind-induced mixing processes on a seasonal timescale, while the warm water wake is dominated by wind-induced mixing processes on a diurnal timescale.