High-resolution dataset of 2024 typhoons in the northern South China Sea captured by a collaborative network of underwater gliders and autonomous underwater vehicles

Abstract. Typhoon-induced ocean responses are not only a key mechanism for regulating global heat transport and maintaining the energy balance of the climate system, but also the core physical processes underlying the intense exchange of matter and energy at the air-sea interface under extreme dynamic forcing. However, traditional passive sampling methods are limited by their discontinuous and sparse spatiotemporal coverage, making it difficult to capture the complete three-dimensional structure and rapid evolution of upper-ocean responses during the critical window of typhoon passage. Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and Underwater Gliders (UGs), with their active tracking and sampling capabilities, can effectively resolve the spatiotemporal evolution of these highly dynamic processes. This paper presents a high-resolution temperature-salinity dataset covering the passage of seven typhoons in the South China Sea during 2024. Constructed from collaborative observations by 62 UGs and 2 AUVs, the dataset achieves an average spatial resolution of 2.4–3.8 km and an average temporal resolution of 3.5–4.3 h (99.7% of the samples had resolutions within 8.4 km and 6.7 h, respectively ). The dataset successfully captures the complex upper-ocean temperature and salinity responses under typhoon forcing, including cooling and salinity increase due to pumping, cooling and salinity decrease triggered by freshwater caps formed by precipitation, cooling and salinity decrease caused by background warm eddies, and significant near inertial oscillations in temperature and salinity. This dataset holds significant potential for in-depth investigation of typhoon-ocean coupling mechanisms and for improving the accuracy of numerical model forecasts.