• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.121-132
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• 2023

Marine heatwaves (MHWs), referring to anomalously high sea surface temperatures, have drawn significant attention from marine scientists due to their broad impacts on the surface marine ecosystem, fisheries, weather patterns, and various human activities. In this study, we examined the impact of the distribution of Changjiang diluted water (CDW), a significant factor causing oceanic property changes in the East China Sea (ECS) during the summer, on MHWs. The surface salinity distribution in the ECS indicates that from June to August, the eastern extension of the CDW influences areas as far as Jeju Island and the Korea Strait. In September, however, the CDW tends to reside in the Changjiang estuary. Through the Empirical Orthogonal Function analysis of the cumulative intensity of MHWs during the summer, we extracted the loading vector of the first mode and its principal component time series to conduct a correlation analysis with the distribution of the CDW. The results revealed a strong negative spatial correlation between areas of the CDW and regions with high cumulative intensity of MHWs, indicating that the reinforcement of stratification due to low-salinity water can increase the intensity and duration of MHWs. This study suggests that the CDW may still influence the spatial distribution of MHWs in the region, highlighting the importance of oceanic environmental factors in the occurrence of MHWs in the waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.355-364
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• 2022

In this study a tendency of abnormal sea surface temperature (SST) occurrence in the seas around South Korea is analyzed from daily SST data from satellite and 14 buoys from August 2020 to July 2021. As thresholds 28℃ and 4℃ are used to determine marine heatwaves(MHWs) and abnormal low water temperature (ALWT), respectively, because those values are adopted by the National Institute of Fisheries Science for the breaking news of abnormal temperature. In order to calculate frequency of abnormal SST occurrence spatially by using satellite SST, research area was divided into six areas of coast and three open seas. ALWT dominantly appeared over a wide area (7,745 km²) in Gyeonggi Bay for total 94 days and it was also confirmed from buoy temperature showing an occurrence number of 47 days. MHWs tended to be high in frequency in the coastal areas of Chungcheongdo and Jeollabukdo and the south coastal areas while in case of buoy temperature Jupo was the place of high frequency (32 days). This difference was supposed to be due to the low accuracy of satellite SST at the coasts. MHWs are also dominant in offshore waters around Korean Peninsula. Although detecting abnormal SST by using satellite SST has advantage of understanding occurrence from a spatial point of view, we also need to perform detection using buoys to increase detection accuracy along the coast.