• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.267-279
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• 1990

The temporal and spatial distribution of the coastal cold waters which was formed due to winter colling in the South Sea of Korea was analyzed by IR images from satellite and in situ data from shipboard observations. The coastal waters are known to be consisted of the Yellow Sea Coastal Waters(YSCW) and the South Korean Coastal Waters(SKCW). The former is driven around the Chuja-do and drifted into the Cheju Strait by residual currents, while the latter expands toward offsea by southward wind forcing. The expansion patterns of the SKCW were observed as sinking expansion or drifting expansion such that both were strongly dependent on the surface heat flux conditions. Under the condition of positive heat flux(warmer sea surface) or when the sea surface heat is lost to the atmosphere, the surface water started sinking and eventually expanded toward the open sea causing the cooling of the water column. For the negative heat flux the surface water was just drifted horizontally and expanded seaward and in this case only the surface layer of water was cooled.

• 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.