A Study on the Fluctuation of Bottom Cold Water in the Western Channel of Korea Strait

We researched the mechanism on th flucturain of Bottom Cold Water in the western channel of Korea Strait, using 13 years(1981~1933) oceanographic data of FRDA. The bottom cold water in the western channel appears more often in summer and fall than in winter and spring, and its year-to-year variation of temperature is very large. Such variation seems to be closely related with the variations of cold waters in the subsurface layer of the southwestern East Sea. According to the longitudinal temperature distribution along the korean southeastern coast, a density difference occurs all the time at the still deepth between the western channel and the southwestern East Sea. Thus, it is inferred that the cold waters would intrude into the western channle form the subsurface layer in the southwestern East Sea as a density-driven current, and it intensity depends upon the density difference.