Kelvin-Helmholtz Billows Observed in the Kuroshio off Taiwan with Moored Temperature and Current Measurements

Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) billows, with 100 m in amplitude and 200 m in length, have been observed above a seamount in the Kuroshio using shipboard echo sounder (i.e. Chang et al. 2016). In this study, we further investigate the KH billows with 11-hour moored observations above the seamount on March 2016 with high vertical resolution temperature measurements. The denser water rolled up within the cores was observed in the core with a vertical scale of 50 m. The secondary instability-like vortex structure was found around the core with a vertical scale < 10 m. We found that some core disturbance appear to be the Holmboe instability instead of the KH instability according to the density structure. The linear stability analysis lent further supports.