Description

The physical dynamic and biological response processes to Typhoon Cimaron (2006) in the South China Sea are investigated through the three‐dimensional Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS). For sea surface temperatures, ROMS achieves a correlation of more than 0.84, with respect to satellite observations, indicating a generally high level of skill for simulating the sea surface temperature variations during Typhoon Cimaron (2006). However, detailed analysis shows that ROMS underestimates the sea surface temperature cooling and mixed layer deepening because of insufficient mixing in the model simulations. We show that the simulation accuracy can be enhanced by adding a wave‐induced mixing term (BV) to the nonlocal K‐profile parameterization (KPP) scheme. Simulation accuracy is needed to investigate nutrients, which are deeply entrained to the oligotrophic sea surface layer by upwelling induced by Typhoon Cimaron, and which plays a remarkable role in the subsequent phytoplankton bloom. Simulations show that the phytoplankton bloom was triggered 5 days after the passage of the storm. The surface ocean was restored to its equilibrium ocean state by about 10–20 days after the typhoon's passage. However, on this time‐scale, the resulting concentrations of nitrate and chlorophyll a remained higher than those in the pre-typhoon equilibrium.

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