• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.231-244
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• 1990

The objectives of this multiyear research are directed toward the investigation of mesoscale circulation dynamics in the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea. With the advent of Supercomputers and increasing necessity of resolving the flow with enough details, a hydrodynamic numerical model of the East China Sea has been developed with resolution of 1/15$^{\circ}$latitude by 1/12$^{\circ}$longitude covering the entire continental shelf. As a first step M$_2$tidal regime representing the domanant tidal conditions of the shelf was computed. Preliminary results are presented and discussions for further developments are presented.

• Atmosphere
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.17-25
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• 2022

As climate change due to global warming continues to be accelerated, various extreme events become more intense, more likely to occur and longer-lasting on a much larger scale. Recent studies show that global warming acts as the primary driver of extreme events and that heat-related extreme events should be attributed to anthropogenic global warming. Among them, both terrestrial and marine heat waves are great concerns for human beings as well as ecosystems. Taking place around the world, one of those events appeared over East Sea in July 2021 with record-breaking high temperature. Meanwhile, climate condition around East Sea was favorable for anomalous warming with less total cloud cover, more incoming solar radiation, and shorter period of Changma rainfall. According to the results of wave activity flux analysis, highly activated meridional mode of teleconnection that links western North Pacific to East Asia caused localized warming over East Sea to become stronger.

• Journal of the korean society of oceanography
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.164-172
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• 1996

CREAMS (Circulation Research of the East Asian Marginal Seas) Expeditions have provided a rare opportunity to carry out precise measurements of salinity, temperature and chemical tracers extensively in all major basins of the East Sea (Japan Sea) in 1993-1996 for the first time in more than 60 years since Uda's investigation (Uda, 1934). Studies revealed unequivocal evidence that the East Sea Proper Water (ESPW), previously known as a single homogeneous water mass, is indeed made of several distinct water masses. CREAMS data further confirmed the earlier observations of Gamo et al. (1986) that properties in Deep Waters in the East Sea have been changing during at least the last 25 years. There is evidence, especially from the analysis of the DO profile, that these changes may result from a major change in the mode of deep water formation: from bottom water formation in the past to intermediate/deep water formation in recent years. The causes for these changes are not clear at the present time, but nay include natural variation and may also reflect recent global changes in regional scale. A moving-boundary box model is presented to describe current observations, predicting the turnover time of the total deep and bottom waters to the cold surface waters to be ${\sim}$80 years in 1996.

• Proceedings of KOSOMES biannual meeting
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.167-174
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• 2003

Oceanic conditions of the Tsushirm Wann Current (1WC) region in the southern area if the East Sea (the Japan Sea) are examined using data obtained from a CREAMS (Circulation Research if the East Asian Marginal Seas) cruise in June 1996. In 1990s, a lower temperature appears in $19\%$ and in this period, two branch of the TWC exist and the first branch of the TWC flows inshore if the Japanese coastal region compared to tfr1t in the other years, especially in the sfr1llower water layer at less th:1n about 2mm. The TWC cored with the higher salinity (>34.6 psu) is clearly observed over the continental shelf zone in the Japanese coastal region and offshore and identified by geostrophic calculation Intrusion if the TWC into the East Sea through the Korea Strait (the Tsushima Strait) makes the density structure in the water column change and the water mass in the TWC region is unstable based on Brunt- Vaisala frequency.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.120-135
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• 1996

The characteristics and fluctuations of structures and spatial distributions of thermal fronts and warm eddy in the Southeastern part of the East sea are discussed based on the data collected by the Naval Academy, Korea during Feb. 6-9, May 9-19 and Oct. 12-18, 1995. The thermal fronts existed very often at the sea off the Pohang-Ulsan, The generation of the thermal front is related with the development of the North Korea Cold Current. The warm eddy is located in the central part of the Ulleung basin where the local depth exceeds 1500m. This warm eddy is a major contributor to mass transport in the northern part of the East Sea. It is evident that knowledge of warm eddy is important in understanding the circulation in the western part of the East Sea.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.208-225
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• 2019

To understand the mean surface circulation and surface currents in the East Sea, trajectories of surface drifters passed through the East Sea from 1991 to 2017 were analyzed. By analyzing the surface drifter trajectory data, the main paths of surface ocean currents were grouped and the variation in each main current path was investigated. The East Korea Warm Current (EKWC) heading northward separates from the coast at $36{\sim}38^{\circ}N$ and flows to the northeast until $131^{\circ}E$. In the middle (from $131^{\circ}E$ to $137^{\circ}E$) of the East Sea, the average latitude of the currents flowing eastward ranges from 36 to $40^{\circ}N$ and the currents meander with large amplitude. When the average latitude of the surface drifter paths was in the north (south) of $37.5^{\circ}N$, the meandering amplitude was about 50 (100) km. The most frequent route of surface drifters in the middle of the East Sea was the path along $37.5-38.5^{\circ}N$. The surface drifters, which were deployed off the coast of Vladivostok in the north of the East Sea, moved to the southwest along the coast and were separated from the coast to flow southeastward along the cyclonic circulation around the Japan Basin. And, then, the drifters moved to the east along $39-40^{\circ}N$. The mean surface current vector and mean speed were calculated in each lattice with $0.25^{\circ}$ grid spacing using the velocity data of surface drifters which passed through each lattice. The current variance ellipses were calculated with $0.5^{\circ}$ grid spacing. Because the path of the EKWC changes every year in the western part of the Ulleung Basin and the current paths in the Yamato Basin keep changing with many eddies, the current variance ellipses are relatively large in these region. We present a schematic map of the East Sea surface current based on the surface drifter data. The significance of this study is that the surface ocean circulation of the East Sea, which has been mainly studied by numerical model simulations and the sea surface height data obtained from satellite altimeters, was analyzed based on in-situ Lagrangian observational current data.

• Journal of the korean society of oceanography
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.101-110
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• 2003

We made intensive observations on the coastal upwelling off the coast of the southern East Sea from June to August in 2001. The upwelling exhibited a weekly waxing and waning. The coastal upwelling of the year 2001 was characterized by abrupt outbreaks and the small local scale. Upwelling occurred more frequently off the coast of Ulsan and Gampo as reported by the earlier observers. The spread of freshly upwelled colder water was varied by each upwelling event. Generally cold waters were carried away northeastward off Pohang province. The upwelled cold waters were saltier than the resident surface waters. The pH and salinity-normalized alkalinity support the idea that the upwelled waters originate from the interior of the East Sea. The extraordinarily high concentration of dissolved oxygen suggests that the upwelled waters are closely connected to the southward flowing North Korea Cold Current. Although a lower primary productivity was reported for the upwelling region, underway surface fluorescence measurement revealed that the recently upwelled waters supported up to an order of magnitude higher algal biomass than the ambient waters. Because thermohaline circulation of the East Sea is so vigorous, with an estimated time scale of less than one hundred years, that the coastal upwelling should be considered not as an anomaly but as a regular component of a circulatory system. A quantitative understanding of upwelling seems to be a key to elucidate material cycling and the associated biological production in the East Sea.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.331-336
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• 2010

The CREAMS (Circulation Research of the East Asian Marginal Sea) survey in 1999 revealed a sharp mid-depth discontinuity of the phosphate:silicate ratio in all basins of the East/Japan Sea. Incidentally, this discontinuity layer corresponds to the oxygen minimum layer. Directly below the discontinuity layer, oxygen concentration is increased. This increase in oxygen concentration is interpreted as a proof of intermediate water formation. Oxygen minimum indicates that the water parcel is old and stable against mixing. So it seems be an efficient barrier to vertical exchange of materials. This means that, once materials enter the lower domain, they rarely return to the upper domain. Therefore, the biogeochemistry of the East/Japan Sea depends heavily on material input through the Korea Strait, and flux is expected to be sensitive to the climate change. As a result, the East/Japan Sea ecosystem seems vulnerable to tipping (regime shift), which occurred on a decadal time scale.

• Journal of the korean society of oceanography
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.8-16
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• 1997

The ventilation theory developed by Luyten, Pedlosky and Stommel (1983) is applied to the East Sea to understand the general circulation pattern of the Intermediate Water, especially the ventilated circulation beneath the Tsushima Warm Current. The original model is slightly modified such that it takes the inflow-outflow of the Tsushima Current into consideration. Results of the model indicate that for sufficiently strong Ekman pumping, the Intermediate Water circulates cyclonically by ventilation. The Intermediate Water subducts beneath the Tsushima Warm Water through the western boundary layer. Off the western boundary layer, it turns northward, outcrops to the north by passing the polar front and continues to flow northward until it finally is absorbed by the northern boundary layer. This result seems to be compatible with some recent observations. Over the ventilated area, the transport of the Tsushima Current is negligible and most transport occurs in the shadow area where the Intermediate layer is motionless indicating that, over the deep motionless layer, the two-layered vertical structure under consideration becomes substantially single-layered.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.25 no.spc3
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• pp.361-371
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• 2003

The effect of bottom friction on the steady wind-driven circulation in the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea (YSECS) has been studied using a two-dimensional numerical model with and without tidal forcing. Upwind flow experiment in YSECS has also been carried out with a schematic time variation in the wind field. The surface water setup and circulation pattern due to steady wind forcing are found to be very sensitive to the bottom friction. When the effects of tidal currents are neglected, the overall current velocities are overestimated and eddies of various sizes appear, upwind flow is formed within the deep trough of the Yellow Sea, forming a part of the topographic gyre on the side of Korea. When tidal forcing is taken into account, the wind-induced surface elevations are smoothed out due to the strong tide-induced bottom friction, which is aligned almost normal to the wind stresses; weak upwind flow is farmed in the deep trough of the Yellow Sea, west and south of Jeju. Calculation with wind forcing only through a parameterized linear bottom friction produces almost same results from the calculation with $M_2$ tidal forcing and wind forcing using a quadratic bottom friction, supporting Hunter (1975)'s linearization of bottom friction which includes the effect of tidal current, can be applied to the simulation of wind-driven circulation in YSECS. The results show that steady wind forcing is not a dominant factor to the winter-time upwind flow in YSECS. Upwind flow experiment which considers the relaxation of pressure gradient (Huesh et al. 1986) shows that 1) a downwind flow is dominant over the whole YSECS when the northerly wind reaches a maximum speed; 2) a trend of upwind flow near the trough is found during relaxation when the wind abates; 3) a northward flow dominates over the YSECS after the wind stops. The results also show that the upwind flow in the trough of Yellow Sea is forced by a wind-induced longitudinal surface elevation gradient.