To confirm the seabed fluid flow at the Haima cold seeps, an integrated study of multi-beam and seismic data reveals the morphology and fate of four bubble plumes and investigates the detailed subsurface structure of the active seepage area. The shapes of bubble plumes are not constant and influenced by the northeastward bottom currents, but the water depth where these bubble plumes disappear (630–650 m below the sea level) (mbsl) is very close to the upper limit of the gas hydrate stability zone in the water column (620 m below the sea level), as calculated from the CTD data within the study area, supporting the “hydrate skin” hypothesis. Gas chimneys directly below the bottom simulating reflectors, found at most sites, are speculated as essential pathways for both thermogenic gas and biogenic gas migrating from deep formations to the gas hydrate stability zone. The fracture network on the top of the basement uplift may be heavily gas-charged, which accounts for the chimney with several kilometers in diameter (beneath Plumes B and C). The much smaller gas chimney (beneath Plume D) may stem from gas saturated localized strong permeability zone. High-resolution seismic profiles reveal pipe-like structures, characterized by stacked localized amplitude anomalies, just beneath all the plumes, which act as the fluid conduits conveying gas from the gas hydrate-bearing sediments to the seafloor, feeding the gas plumes. The differences between these pipe-like structures indicate the dynamic process of gas seepage, which may be controlled by the build-up and dissipation of pore pressure. The 3D seismic data show high saturated gas hydrates with high RMS amplitude tend to cluster on the periphery of the gas chimney. Understanding the fluid migration and hydrate accumulation pattern of the Haima cold seeps can aid in the further exploration and study on the dynamic gas hydrate system in the South China Sea.

Philippine archipelago (PA) has strong background seismicity, but there is no systematic study of earthquake triggering in this region. There are six earthquakes (M_w > 6) occurred between 2018/12/29 and 2019/09/29 in PA, which provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the triggering relationship among these events. We calculate the static Coulomb stress changes of the first five events, and find that the local seismicity after the 2018/12/29 M_w 7.0 earthquake is mostly associated with positive Coulomb stress changes, including the 2019/05/31 M_w 6.1 event, suggesting a possible triggering relationship. However, we cannot rule out the dynamic triggering mechanism, due to increased microseismicity in both positive and negative stress change regions, and an incomplete local catalog, especially right after the first M_w 7.0 mainshock. The dynamic stresses from these M_w > 6 events are large enough (from 5 kPa to 3532 kPa) to trigger subsequent events, but a lack of seismicity and waveform evidence does not support delayed dynamic triggering among these events, even the shortest time interval is less than 24 hours. In the past 45 years, the released seismic energy shows certain peaks every 5–10 years. However, earthquakes with M_w > 6.0 were relatively infrequent between 2004 and 2018 at PA. Hence, it is possible that several regions are relatively late in their earthquake cycles, which would enhance their susceptibility of being triggered by earthquakes at nearby and regional distances.

Wave radiation stress is the main driving force of wave-induced near-shore currents. It is directly related to the hydrodynamic characteristics of near-shore current whether the calculation of wave radiation stress is accurate or not. Irregular waves are more capable of reacting wave motion in the ocean compared to regular waves. Therefore, the calculation of the radiation stress under irregular waves will be more able to reflect the wave driving force in the actual near-shore current. Exact solution and approximate solution of the irregular wave radiation stress are derived in this paper and the two kinds of calculation methods are compared. On the basis of this, the experimental results are used to further verify the calculation of wave energy in the approximate calculation method. The results show that the approximate calculation method of irregular wave radiation stress has a good accuracy under the condition of narrow-band spectrum, which can save a lot of computing time, and thus improve the efficiency of calculation. However, the exact calculation method can more accurately reflect the fluctuation of radiation stress at each moment and each location.

Using 110 newly revised Holocene sea level indicators categorized into three types, sediments (67), shelly cheniers (27) and oyster reefs (16), this paper firstly provides a Holocene relative sea level curve, based on multiple approaches of litho- and biostratigraphies and sedimentary faces analysis, for the west coast of Bohai Bay, China. Following considerations, including indicative meaning, the paleo tidal pattern and range and conversion from mean tidal level to mean sea level, an apparent relative mean sea level (RMSL) curve was further reconstructed. After systematical calibration using CALIB, those of the 48 reworked samples were further corrected for the residence-time effect. Similarly, the younger ages for another 35 samples were chosen at the subsample level. These result in a younger-oriented shift for about 0.5 ka. Three local spatial factors, including neotectonic subsidence (average rate about 0.1 mm/a), self-compaction of unconsolidated sediments (between a few decimeters to about 6 m) and subsidence due to groundwater withdrawal (between a few centimeters to about 2.5 m), were quantitatively corrected. Finally, the amended RMSL curve after eliminating all these local temporo-spatial factors is very likely to show non-existence of mid-Holocene highstand and imply potential influences of both ice-volume equivalent sea level and regional glacial isostatic adjustment. Although it is still unable to divide both global and regional factors, the slowdown of sea level rise, in 7.5–6.8 ka with a maximum height less than +1 m, may constrain the model effort in the near future.

A deep-learning-based method, called ConvLSTMP3, is developed to predict the sea surface heights (SSHs). ConvLSTMP3 is data-driven by treating the SSH prediction problem as the one of extracting the spatial-temporal features of SSHs, in which the spatial features are “learned” by convolutional operations while the temporal features are tracked by long short term memory (LSTM). Trained by a reanalysis dataset of the South China Sea (SCS), ConvLSTMP3 is applied to the SSH prediction in a region of the SCS east off Vietnam coast featured with eddied and offshore currents in summer. Experimental results show that ConvLSTMP3 achieves a good prediction skill with a mean RMSE of 0.057 m and accuracy of 93.4% averaged over a 15-d prediction period. In particular, ConvLSTMP3 shows a better performance in predicting the temporal evolution of mesoscale eddies in the region than a full-dynamics ocean model. Given the much less computation in the prediction required by ConvLSTMP3, our study suggests that the deep learning technique is very useful and effective in the SSH prediction, and could be an alternative way in the operational prediction for ocean environments in the future.

A 41-year Antarctic sea ice concentration (SIC) dataset derived from satellite passive microwave radiometers during the period of 1979–2019 has been used to analyze sea ice changes in recent decades. The trends of SIC and sea ice extent (SIE) are calculated during the periods of 1979–2019, 1979–2013, and 2014–2019. The trends show regionally dependent features. The SIC shows an increasing trend in most of the regions except the Bellingshausen Sea and Amundsen Sea (BA) during 1979–2019 and 1979–2013. The SIE trend shows a decreasing or decelerating trend in the period of 1979–2019 ((6 835±2 210) km²/a) compared with the 1979–2013 period ((18 600±2 203) km²/a). In recent years (2014–2019), the SIC and SIE have exhibited decreasing trends (–(34 567±3 521) km²/month), especially in the Weddell Sea (WS) and Ross Sea (RS) during summer and autumn. The trends are related to regionally dependent causes. The analyses show that the SIC and SIE decreased in response to the warming trend of 2 m air temperature (T_a-2m) and have exhibited a good relationship with T_a-2m in summer and autumn in recent years. The sea ice decrease in the Antarctic is mainly caused by increases in absorbed energy and southward energy transportation in recent years, such as the increase in gained solar radiation and moist static energy from the south, which demonstrate notable regional characteristics. In the WS region, the local positive feedback from the additional absorbed solar radiation, resulting in warmer air and reduced sea ice, is the main reason for the sea ice decrease in recent years. The increase in southward energy transport has also favored a decrease in sea ice. In the RS region, the increase in southward-transported moist static energy has contributed to the decrease in sea ice, and the increases in cloud cover and longwave radiation have prevented sea ice growth.

A high resolution one-dimensional thermodynamic snow and ice (HIGHTSI) model was used to model the annual cycle of landfast ice mass and heat balance near Zhongshan Station, East Antarctica. The model was forced and initialized by meteorological and sea ice in situ observations from April 2015 to April 2016. HIGHTSI produced a reasonable snow and ice evolution in the validation experiments, with a negligible mean ice thickness bias of (0.003±0.06) m compared to in situ observations. To further examine the impact of different snow conditions on annual evolution of first-year ice (FYI), four sensitivity experiments with different precipitation schemes (0, half, normal, and double) were performed. The results showed that compared to the snow-free case, the insulation effect of snow cover decreased bottom freezing in the winter, leading to 15%–26% reduction of maximum ice thickness. Thick snow cover caused negative freeboard and flooding, and then snow ice formation, which contributed 12%–49% to the maximum ice thickness. In early summer, snow cover delayed the onset of ice melting for about one month, while the melting of snow cover led to the formation of superimposed ice, accounting for 5%–10% of the ice thickness. Internal ice melting was a significant contributor in summer whether snow cover existed or not, accounting for 35%–56% of the total summer ice loss. The multi-year ice (MYI) simulations suggested that when snow-covered ice persisted from FYI to the 10th MYI, winter congelation ice percentage decreased from 80% to 44% (snow ice and superimposed ice increased), while the contribution of internal ice melting in the summer decreased from 45% to 5% (bottom ice melting dominated).

Mass loss caused by glacier calving is one of the direct contributors to global sea level rise. Reliable calving laws are required for accurate modelling of ice sheet mass balance. Both continuous and discontinuous methods have been used for glacial calving simulations. In this study, the discrete element method (DEM) based on dilated polyhedral elements is introduced to simulate the calving process of a tidewater glacier. Dilated polyhedrons can be obtained from the Minkowski sum of a sphere and a core polyhedron. These elements can be utilized to generate a continuum ice material, where the interaction force between adjacent elements is modeled by constructing bonds at the joints of the common faces. A hybrid fracture model considering fracture energy is introduced. The viscous creep behavior of glaciers on long-term scales is not considered. By applying buoyancy and gravity to the modelled glacier, DEM results show that the calving process is caused by cracks which are initialized at the top of the glacier and spread to the bottom. The results demonstrate the feasibility of using the dilated polyhedral DEM method in glacier simulations, additionally allowing the fragment size of the breaking fragments to be counted. The relationship between crack propagation and internal stress in the glacier is analyzed during calving process. Through the analysis of the Mises stress and the normal stress between the elements, it is found that geometric changes caused by the glacier calving lead to the redistribution of the stress. The tensile stress between the elements is the main influencing factor of glacier ice failure. In addition, the element shape, glacier base friction and buoyancy are studied, the results show that the glacier model based on the dilated polyhedral DEM is sensitive to the above conditions.

At the end of May 2008, a massive bloom of macroalgae occurred in the western Yellow Sea off China and lasted for nearly two months, and annual blooms have occurred since then on. During bloom period, the surface-drifting macroalgae have showed an interesting pattern dominated by a banded structure, and the distance between neighboring bands ranged from hundreds of meters to about 6 km with a peak at 1–1.5 km, which is an order of higher than the scale of Langmuir circulation of 50–100 m. In order to explain this new phenomenon, ocean current data obtained from a Doppler current profiler off Qingdao was used to implement stability analysis. By numerically solving the resulting differential Orr-Sommerfeld equation, the secondary circulation induced from the instability of the Emkan current was found to fit well with the observed spatial scale of the surface-drifting macroalgae’s banded structure. As the wind driven Emkan current exist universally in the global ocean, it is reasonable to conclude that the banded structure with kilometers distance between adjoining bands is ubiquitous. We found a new circulation in the upper ocean which is important for exchange of energy, materials and gas between the upper ocean and subsurface layer.

The Mozambique Ridge (MOZR) is one of the basement high structures located in the Southwest Indian Ocean, parallel to the Southeast African continental margin. It was formed as a result of the tectono-magmatic evolution of the Gondwana breakup. The origin of the MOZR has been highly debated, with models suggesting either continental or oceanic origin. With new free-air gravity anomaly and multichannel seismic (MCS) reflection data, we present results of 2D density modeling along two seismic profiles acquired by R/V Xiangyanghong 10 at the northern Mozambique Ridge (N-MOZR) between 26°S and 28°S. We observed high free-air gravity anomaly and strong positive magnetic anomaly related to the emplaced seaward dipping reflectors (SDR) and high density lower crustal body (HDLCB), and high Bouguer gravity anomaly associated with the thinning of the continental crust underneath the N-MOZR over a distance of ~82 km. This suggests a thinned and intruded continental crust bound by the Mozambique Fracture Zone (MFZ) that is characterized by gravity low and negative magnetic anomaly. This fracture zone marks the continent-ocean boundary (COB) while the N-MOZR is the transform margin high, i.e., marks the continent-ocean transition (COT) of the Southern Mozambique margin, following the definition of transform margins. We suggest that the N-MOZR was formed by continental extension and subsequent breakup of the MFZ, accompanied by massive volcanism during the southward movement of the Antarctica block. The presence of SDR, HDLCB, and relatively thick oceanic crust indicates the volcanic nature of this transform margin.