Fig. 1. Bathymetry of the East Sea (Modified from Choi et al., 2012). Contour lines denote 1000, 2000 and 3000 m isobaths. KS stands for Korea Strait, TS Tsugaru Strait, SS Soya Strait, TTS Tatar Strait, UB Ulleung Basin, JB Japan Basin, YB Yamato Basin, YR Yamato Rise, EKB East Korea Bay, KP Korea Plateau, UD Ulleungdo, DD Dokdo, OI Oki Islands, and NP Noto Peninsula.
Fig. 2. Trajectories of surface drifters from the Korea Strait along the East Korea Warm Current (EKWC). Surface drifters were grouped by the mean latitude (L) of their trajectories between 131°E to 137°E. Here, n is the number of surface drifters in each group.
Fig. 3. The number of surface drifters which traveled eastward along each latitude bin in the middle (131~137°E) of the East Sea. Bin size is 1°. For example, the number in 38°N bin represents the number of surface drifters whose mean latitude were between 37.5°N and 38.5°N.
Fig. 4. Trajectories of surface drifters along (a) the Japan Nearshore Branch (JNB) along the coast (the Tsushima Warm Current) and (b) the JNB separated from the coast. Here, n is the number of surface drifters in each group.
Fig. 5. Trajectories of surface drifters released or started off Vladivostok in the northwester East Sea. Surface drifters were grouped by the mean latitude (L) of their trajectories within 133-137.5°E and 35°N-42°N. Here, n is the number of surface drifters in each group.
Fig. 6. Composites of absolute dynamic topography (m) (contours at 0.05 m intervals) and drifter trajectories (a) from October 1999 to February 2000 and (b) from January 2007 to June 2007. Red (black) lines represent trajectories of surface drifters released from the Korea Strait (off Vladivostok, Russia). Vectors are surface geostrophic currents estimated from the satellite altimeter data.
Fig. 9. Trajectories of the surface drifters along the EKWC. Surface drifters were grouped by the spatial mean northward speed (
Fig. 10. Schematic surface current map of the East Sea estimated from surface drifter trajectories. Red (Blue) lines represent warm current (cold current). (a) Vectors are mean surface current vectors (cm/s) and (b) Isobaths representing bottom topography of the East Sea are overlaid with schematic surface current map. Contour lines denote 1000, 2000 and 3000 m isobaths, respectively.
Fig. 7. (a) Mean surface current vectors on 0.25° × 0.25° grid and (b) mean surface current speed (cm/s).
Fig. 8. (a) Variance ellipses and (b) the number of surface current vectors used for variance estimation with major axis and minor axis on 0.5° × 0.5° grid.
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