In order to understand the impact of marine biogeochemical effects on climate change, it was initiated by the Scientific Committee for Ocean Research (SCOR) in 1987. The Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) was launched by more than 20 countries around the world and was established 8 time series stations were used to study the changes of the carbon cycle and its control mechanism at different scales, time and space. The South China Sea time series station established in 1998 is one of them, also known as the Southeast Asian time series station (SEATS), operated by TAIWAN.
The SEATS time-series station is located at 18° N, 116° E about 700 km southwest of Taiwan, in the South China Sea (SCS), the largest ice-free marginal sea in the world (the ice-covered Arctic Sea is the largest). It has a wide continental shelf to the south, significant runoff from several large rivers, including the Mekong River and the Pearl River, and a deep (>3000 m) basin.