• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.169-179
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• 2017

The "GeoDrifter" is a newly-developed surface drifter with high temporal resolution. It is the first time that high-frequency drifters have been deployed in the East/Japan Sea. The purpose of this study is to introduce the phenomena experienced by these drifters flowing along with the Tsushima Current across the East/Japan Sea, focusing on high-frequency variability, and to discuss them in comparison with previous observations. The observed basin-scale circulation of the Tsushima Current generally coincides well with the known schematic circulation. The GeoDrifter trajectories also show inertial oscillations almost everywhere in the oceanic regions of the East/Japan Sea, strong semi-diurnal tidal currents in the western part of Korea Strait, diurnal currents much stronger than semi-diurnal currents in the upstream region of the Nearshore Branch off the Japanese coast, and many warm eddies in the Yamato Basin, all comparable to the observational results reported in the previous studies. An interesting point is that the semi-diurnal tidal currents undergo a great spatial variation in the western part of the Korea Strait. The observed features that cannot be explained are, among others, strong counter-clockwise motions with oscillating period about 51 hours appearing in the upstream region of the Nearshore Branch off the Japanese coast and the different tidal behaviors between upstream and downstream regions of the latter.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Fisheries Technology Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.242-243
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• 2001

Tsushima Warm Current(WD entering into the East Sea through the Korean Strait flows northeastward and during this travel it shows complicated movement like meandering and eddy. It is considered that these variations of TWC are important causes making water masses unstable and also have influence on biological and chemical properties of water masses. Lee and Cho(2000) suggested that meandering of TWC in adjacent waters of Noto peninsula has much influence on fluctuation of current structure. (omitted)

• Proceedings of KOSOMES biannual meeting
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.43-50
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• 2007

In order to calculate the strength and to. see the variation af the stratification in the Southern Waters af Korea, the stratification parameter defined as potential energy anomaly (PEA, $V(J/m^3)$) introduced by Simpson and Hunter (1974) was used The data used in this paper were observed in August 1999 and February 2000 by National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI). Also to know the effects af the temperature and the salinity an the stratification respectively, averaged temperature and salinity were used in the process af calculation the parameter. V is generally high in the offshore. However, in February, V in the onshore is higher than that of the offshore due to the vertical temperature gradient caused by the expansion of South Korean Coastal Waters (SKCW). In the summer, the increase af the atmospheric heating, the temperature inversion phenomenon act an the stratification as the buoyancy forcing. In most cases, the effects of the temperature on the stratification is stronger than that of the salinity. The temperature effect is predominantly due to the extent af the intrusion of Tsushima Warm Current into the study area. However, at stations where V is high the effect af the salinity is also significant. In the winter, V is very low due to the decrease of the buoyancy forcing, but same stations show the relatively high V due to the expansion of SKCW and Tsushima Warm Current.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.89-94
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• 1987

The fluctuations of sea surface temperatures (SST) and their anomalies in the Tsushima Current region are studied by means of empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis of the monthly SST data for 30 years (1941-1970) at 8 coastal stations. The overall features of the seasonal variation of SST are described by the first EOF mode, which explains $97.2\%$ of the total variance. Annual ranges of seasonal variation of SST and root-mean-square amplitudes of SST anomalies in the downstream of the Tsushima Current are larger than those in the upstream. The SST anomalies in the Tsushima Current region consist of simultaneous fluctuations, which explain $40.9\%$ of the total variance, and 'see-saw' fluctuations of which rise and fall in the upstream are opposite to those in the downstream. The latter second EOF mode explains $19.3\%$ of the total variance. We generated the low-pass (periods longer than 24 months), band-pass (periods between 6 and 24 months) and high-pass (periods shorter than 6 months) SST anomaly series and analyzed them by EOF method. The spatial distributions of the first and second EOF modes of all filtered SST anomalies are similar to each other.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.331-340
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• 1988

Using the oceanographic data during 196s~ 1983, the seasonal variation of the water type in the Tsushima Current is discussed by analyzing the thermosteric anomaly $(\delta_T)$. By investigating with the index of $33.8\%_{\circ}$ in salinity, it is shown that the low saline water inflowed through the Korea Strait affects the variations of water type in surface layer from summer to fall. On the sea surface, the value of $\delta_T$ is affected mainly by the sea surface temperature (SST). However, in summer, $\delta_T$ is temporarily influenced by the transitional characteristic of the surface salinity. It has the minimum value in winter when the SST is the highest and the sea surface salinity is the lowest. In fall, it decreases as the SST decreases. Specifically, the value of $\delta_T$ is 779 cl/t in August in the region of Korea Strait and 667 cl/t in September in the East Coast of Korea. These values are larger than that of the Kuroshio where is 622 cl/t in August. This phenomenon is due to the inflow of low saline water into these area during summer. In loom depth, the seasonal variation of the $\delta_T$ is not so significant as the surface and is mainly dependent on the annual temperature variation. In general, $\delta_T$ decreases as the Tsushima Current flows to the north.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.733-753
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• 1994

Monthly mean sea levels from 103 tidal stations in Korea, Japan, and Russia are analyzed to study long-period sea level variations. Barometric adjustment are done for all the sea level data, using monthly air pressures at sea levels from meteorological stations near tidal stations. Seasonal variation is dominant in most of study area. It is the largest in the coasts along the Tsushima Current, and the smallest in the Russian coasts. The cross-correlations of seasonal variations are very high between the coasts along the Tsushima Current. In these marginal seas, seasonal variations seem to be related with the Tsushima Current. The phase of seasonal variations is generally getting late from south to north, and also from west to east. On the other hand, longer-period variations(longer than seasonal variation) have the largest amplitudes and the earliest phases in the coasts along the Pacific Ocean, which shows that they propagate from the Pacific Ocean. Shorter-period variations (shorter than seasonal variation) have generally lower cross correlations. Their values do not show any dictinct difference between areas, and show a common tendency that they are inversely proportional to distance. It implies that the shorter period waves are generated all over the study areas, and propagate in all the directions with faster dissipations. The trends of sea levels in the study area are generally negative in the coasts along the Pacific Ocean and positive in the other areas during the period of 1965 to 1985. By the trends, the mean volume transport between Cheju and Sasebo can be reduced by about 1 Sv during the period. The seasonal variation of volume transport obtained by sea level difference is about 2 Sv in the Korea Strait. The values are comparable to previous reports.

• 한국해양학회지
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.74-82
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• 1982

The study on the variation coefficient of water temperature and salinity was comducted during the year from 1968 to 1980 in the Southern Sea of Korea. The results obtaland from the study as followes; 1. The variation coefficient of water temperature and salinity wewe large either at the front area or the thermocline and malocline area. 2. The variation coefficient of water temperature was the largest at the time when the power was strong ty each water mass(The largest value in Tsushima and Yellow Sea Warm Current area was occurred at the 50m layer in the Summer, and that in the South Korean Coastal Water area and the Southern Part of Yellow Sea was at all layer in the Winter). 3. The variation coefficient of salinity was the largest at the surface layer in warm current area that was influenced by the low salinity of the East China Coastal Water in the Summer ,and that of salinity in the South Korean Coastal Water area and Soutern Part of Yellow Sea was nearly half of the value of the warm current area.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.677-697
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• 1995

The analysis of long- period sea level variations with tidal record data around Korea, Japan, and Russia shows that about half of the variations are due to atmospheric influences. The sea level variation by water movements is the largest in the coasts along the Tsushima Current, and becomes smaller in the distant areas. It suggests that the sea level varications are related with the Tsushima Current. The effect of sea level variations to ocean circulation has been studied with a numerical model allowing barotropic sea level fluctuations, like the result with GCM (Semtner) model by Pang et al.(1993), the present model also shows that waters basically flow along isobaths over the last China Sea after geostyophic adjustment around Taiwan. However, barotropic sea level fluctuation makes the basic circulation in the Yellow Sea, which waters flow into the central Yellow Sea and out along the west coast of the Korean Peninsula. Besides this, barotropic sea level fluctuation makes long period waves over the shelf area as the Kuroshio varies. By the waves, the basic circulation in the Yellow Sea is disturbed, so that the flow pattern of oppositely flowing into the Yellow Sea along the west roast of the Korean Peninsula appears. In the Yellow Sea circulation, it seems that northwest winds strengthen the basic circulat ion In winter, and southeast winds strengthen the disturbed circulation in summer. Another point appeared by the long period wave is that the Tsushima Current possibly originates in different areas. There have been two opposing argues on the area in which the Tsushima Current originates the southwest sea of Kyushu Island and the adjacent sea of Taiwan. Through this study, we found that both of them seem to be important areas for the origin of the Tsushima Current, and one of them is possibly strengthened by long period waves. The long period waves given by the variation of the Kuroshio Current in the adjacent sea of Taiwan propagate to the Korea Strait as forced waves. The wave continuously propagates to the last Sea through the eastern channel, but reflects in the western channel due to bottom topography. The reflected waves propagate southwestward along the last China Sea as free waves and determine the sea level variations with forced waves.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.305-319
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• 2000

A total of 50 diatom species and 1 subspecies belonging to 31 genera except Chaetoceros resting spores were identified in the 45 sediments subsampled from a gravity core GH98-1223 collected from the western Hokkaido Island located in the northeastern East Sea (Sea of Japan). The most dominant species is Thalassionema nitzschioides (Grunow) Hustedt, ranging 29 to 59% of the total assemblages, and most species including Denticulopsis seminae (Simonsen and Kanaya) Simonsen and Pseudoeunotia doliolus (Wallich) Grunow were less than 5% in average. Frequencies of cold-water species are generally higher than those of warm-water species and the vertical distribution of cold-water species was largely opposite to that of warm-water species in spite of ecological habitat difference. Frequency of cold-water species, D. seminae is reverse to that of P. doliolus, an indicator of the Tsushima Warm Current, which is consistent with diatom temperature value (T$_{d}$ value). The variation of T$_{d}$ values shows that the upper part of core with greater-than-average T$_{d}$ values represents postglacial warming trend. These T$_{d}$ values clearly demonstrate that the study area located in the northern part of the East Sea is gradually influenced by Tsushima Warm Current. In addition, the zig-zag variation in the lower part reflects the unstable seawater for diatom habitat. Chaetoceros resting spores indicating productivity and upwelling was 5.3 to 40%, with maximum peak at 80 cm. Chaetoceros resting spores/Chaetoceros vegetative cells, an indicator of relative amounts of biogenic material in the sediments was high at the upper 80 cm level, corresponding to the change of T$_{d}$ values. On the basis of diatom assemblages, the northeastern part of East Sea has experienced the effects of Tsushima Warm Current during the postglacial period of Holocene, which is similar to the modem climatic environment. However, the variation of P. doliolus reflects that the intensity of Tsushima Warm Current has been oscillated in the East Sea.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.165-171
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• 2009

In order to illustrate the effects of water temperature inversion on the stratification variation in the South Sea of Korea, water temperature, salinity, and density measured in October and December 1999 by National Fisheries Research and Development Institute were reviewed. In October and December of 1999, temperature inversion occurred mainly between 25m and 75m, and in particular in depth of water, in December temperature inversion layer also was formed in the surface layer. In case of October and December, the Tsushima Warm Current (TWC), warm and saline water, was one of motors, and in December, influence of surface cold water was added Although northerly wind prevails in October and December, in October, expanding of the South Korean Coastal Waters (SKCW) towards offshore is not clear, but in December when wind speed is relatively greater than that in October and strength of the TWC become weak, the SKCW spreads towards offshore through the upper layer. Stratification variation was higher along the area where temperature inversion occurred.