• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.282-297
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• 2019

Detection of mesoscale oceanic eddies using satellite data can utilize various ocean parameters such as sea surface temperature (SST), chlorophyll-a pigment concentration in phytoplankton, and sea level altimetry measurements. Observation methods vary for each satellite dataset, as it is obtained using different temporal and spatial resolution, and optimized data processing. Different detection results can be derived for the same oceanic eddies; therefore, fundamental research on eddy detection using satellite data is required. In this study, we used ocean color satellite data, sea level altimetry data, and infrared SST data to detect mesoscale eddies in the East Sea and compared results from different detection methods. The sea surface current field derived from the consecutive ocean color chlorophyll-a concentration images using the maximum cross correlation coefficient and the geostrophic current field obtained from the sea level altimetry data were used to detect the mesoscale eddies in the East Sea. In order to compare the eddy detection from satellite data, the results were divided into three cases as follows: 1) the eddy was detected in both the ocean color and altimeter images simultaneously; 2) the eddy was detected from ocean color and SST images, but no eddy was detected in the altimeter data; 3) the eddy was not detected in ocean color image, while the altimeter data detected the eddy. Through these three cases, we described the difficulties with satellite altimetry data and the limitations of ocean color and infrared SST data for eddy detection. It was also emphasized that study on eddy detection and related research required an in-depth understanding of the mesoscale oceanic phenomenon and the principles of satellite observation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers Conference
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• 2003.08a
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• pp.164-169
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• 2003

The need fur higher grid resolution in climate models is often discussed (e.g. McAvaney et al.,2001) because a number of important oceanic processes are not resolved by the current generation of coupled models, e.g., boundary currents, mesoscale eddy fluxes, sill through flows. McClean et al., (1997) and Bryan and Smith (1998) have compared simulated mesoscale variability in simulations at several eddy-resolving resolutions to TOPEX/Poseidon and similar data. (omitted)

• Ocean Science Journal
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.67-78
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• 2005

Complex physical, chemical and biological interactions off the Korean coast created several striking patterns in the phytoplankton blooms, which became conspicuous during the measurements of ocean color from space. This study concentrated on analyzing the spatial and temporal aspects of phytoplankton chlorophyll variability in these areas using an integrated dataset from a Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS), Advanced Very High Resolution (AVHRR) sensor, and Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD) sensor. The results showed that chlorophyll concentrations were elevated in coastal and open ocean regions, with strong summer and fall blooms, which appeared to spread out in most of the enclosed bays and neighboring waters due to certain oceanographic processes. The chlorophyll concentration was observed to range between 3 and $54\;mg\;m^{-3}$ inside Jin-hae Bay and adjacent coastal bays and 0.5 and $8\;mg\;m^{-3}$ in the southeast sea offshore waters, this gradual decrease towards oceanic waters suggested physical transports of phytoplankton blooms from the shallow shelves to slope waters through the influence of the Tsushima Warm Current (TWC) along the Tsushima Strait. Horizontal distribution of potential temperature $(\theta)$ and salinity (S) of water off the southeastern coast exhibited cold and low saline surface water $(\theta and warm and high saline subsurface water $({\theta}>12^{\circ}C; S>34.4)$ at 75dBar, corroborating TWC intrusion along the Tsushima Strait. An eastward branch of this current was called the East Korean Warm Current (EKWC), tracked with the help of CTD data and satellite-derived sea surface temperature, which often influenced the dynamics of mesoscale anticyclonic eddy fields off the Korean east coast during the summer season. The process of such mesoscale anticyclonic eddy features might have produced interior upwelling that could have shoaled and steepened the nutricline, enhancing phytoplankton population by advection or diffusion of nutrients in the vicinity of Ulleungdo in the East Sea.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.219-228
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• 2002

Based on the five-year (October 1992 through September 1997) Topex/Poseidon altimeter measurements, we describe the statistical characteristics of the eddy variability in the East Sea in terms of sea surface height anomaly, slope variability, and eddy kinetic energy (EKE). The sea surface height anomalies in the East Sea are produced with standard corrections from Topex/Poseidon measurements. In order to eliminate the high frequency noise in the sea surface height anomaly data, the alongtrack height anomaly data was filtered by about 40 km low-pass Lanczos filter based on Strub et al. (1997) and Kelly et a1. (1998). We find that there exists a distinct spatial contrast of high eddy variability in the south and low eddy energy in the north, bordering the Polar Front. In the northwestern area $(north\;of\;39^{\circ}N\;and\;west\;of\;133^{\circ}E)$ from the Polar Front where the eddies frequently appear, the EKE is also considerabel. The high kinetic energy in the southern East Sea reveals a close connection with the paths of the Tsushima Warm Current, suggesting that the high variability in the south is mainly generated by the baroclinic instability process of the Tsushima Warm Current. This finding is supported by other studies (Fu and Zlontnicki, 1989; Stammer, 1997) wh.ch have shown the strong eddy energy coupled in the major current system. The monthly variation of the EKE in both areas of high and low eddy variability shows a strong seasonality of a high eddy kinetic energy from October to February and a relatively low one from March to September. The sequential pattern of wind stress curl shows resemblance with those of monthly and seasonal EKE and the two sequences have a correlation of 0.82 and 0.67, respectively, providing an evidence that wind stress curl can be the possible forcing for the monthly and seasonal variation of the EKE in the East Sea. The seasonality of the EKE also seems to correlate with the seasonality of the Tsushima Warm Current. There also exists the large spatial and interannual variabilities in the EKE.