• Proceedings of KOSOMES biannual meeting
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.35-44
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• 2003

Considering possible legal and policy problems with regard to the Cheju Strait, a central issue is whether the Cheju Strait should be treated as Korean territorial sea or an international strait The claim that the strait is territorial sea has been based on the use of a straight baseline method of dermarcation With the use of straight baseline, Korea claims that the breadth of the Cheju Strait is only 20.7 miles at its narrowest point and therefore the strait becomes the territorial sea of Korea. The consideration cf marine pollution has weighed heavily in claiming the Cheju Strait as territorial sea. Pollution resulting from the accidents cf tankers caused by fire, collision, or stranding in the Cheju Strait and the Korea Strait would be enormous, affecting the entire coastal waters of the south coasts cf Korea's mainland and Japan's Tsushima Islands areas. Catastrophic pollution in the Cheju Strait could also come from the accidents cf large-size oil tankers passing through the Korea Strait from the Malacca Strait Although the Korean government considers the geographic and socioeconomic conditions sufficient to justify Korea's claim of the Cheju Strait as territorial sea, it believes that declaring it so would raise considerable legal conflicts with maritime states. In view of the legal difficulties and the need to meet the problems arising from the growing vessel traffic in the Cheju Strait, the sea lanes and traffic separation schemes may be considered an alternative to the internationalization of the Cheju Strait Even if the Korean government dose not do so, the regime of innocent passage should be applied to vessels passing through the Strait and should not suspend innocent passage through the Strait. Therefore, the Korean government needs to have a more legal, pragmatic, functional and managerial approach than a purely sovereign and selfish approach to the solution of legal matters of the Cheju strait For this purpose, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea would serve as a guide and also self-restraint and cooperative approaches would become norms governing the resolution of the law of the sea issues in the Cheju Strait.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.63-93
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• 2023

This study aims to examine the history of naming the strait between the Yellow and East China Seas and the East Sea to suggest a consistent nomenclature and to demarcate the geographic region of the strait. Although the strait is internationally known as 'Korea Strait', it is commonly referred to as the 'South Sea' in Korean common usage. This review ultimately recommends the use of 'Korea Strait' as an appropriate geographical name for this area. To support this recommendation, the historical boundaries typically assigned to the Korea Strait were investigated. We also analyzed the evolution of geographical labels assigned to Korea Strait and to the Western and Eastern Channels (labels given to the two maritime areas surrounding Tsushima). Resources for this analysis included historic maps and charts, International Hydrographic Organization Special Publications (S-23), and maps published in the Ocean Science Journal (OSJ) and Journal of Oceanography (JO), which are two international journals representing Korean and Japanese sources, respectively, from 2005 to 2021. In these two international journals, the most frequently used names assigned to the strait of interest were Korea Strait (appearing 42.9% of OSJ maps, and 7.5% of JO maps), and Tsushima Strait (appearing 60.4% of JO maps, and 0% of OSJ maps). Other names were South Sea and Korea Strait/Tsushima Strait. On maps in the two reviewed journals, the boundaries of Korea Strait were defined explicitly or implicitly in five different ways: a broad region between the Yellow and East China Seas and Ulleung Basin (Type 1), the region between Ulleung Basin and Tsushima (Type 2), the western channel of the strait (Type 3-1), the eastern channel of the strait (Type 3-2), and both the western and eastern channels of the strait (Type 4). Overall, Type 1 was the most frequently used boundary, taking up 71.4% of OSJ and 60.4% of JO maps. Lastly, we suggest in this paper that the current flowing through Korea Strait from the East China Sea to the East Sea should be labeled the 'Korea Strait Warm Current' to indicate its full path through the strait. Currently, this current is internationally referred to as the 'Tsushima Warm Current', which does not link well to the commonly used geographic name of the strait.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.393-403
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• 2016

A steady, strong southward flow was observed in the lower layer beneath the Tsushima Warm Current in the deepest trough of the Korea Strait. Known as the Korea Strait Bottom Cold Water (KSBCW), this bottom current had a mean velocity of 24 cm/s and temperatures below 8–10℃. The direction of the bottom current was highly stable due to the topographic effects of the elongated trough. To determine the path of the southward bottom current, ADCP (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler) data from 14 stations between 1999 and 2005 were examined. Persistent southward flows with average speeds of 4–10 cm/s were observed at only three places to the north of the strait where the bottom depths were 100–124 m. The collected data suggest a possible course of the southward bottom current along the southeast Korean coast before entering the deep trough of the Strait.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.113-121
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• 1998

A relationship between sea level variations in the Korea Strait (the western and the eastern channels) and the Tokara Strait in the Kuroshio region is examined using daily-mean sea level data from 1966 to 1986. The seasonal variation of the sea level difference (SLD) between Izuhara and Pusan (the western channel) is most periodic: the positive anomalies appear from summer to autumn, and the negative anomalies from winter to spring year to year, whereas SLDs neither between Hakata and Izuhara (the eastern channel) nor between Naze and Nishinoomote (the Tokara Strait) show such a periodic variation. Much similarity has been found between SLDs in the eastern channel and the Tokara Strait, and in particular they were closely correlated in a special event of the Kuroshio region, such as a large meander of the Kuroshio. This paper shows that the periodic seasonal variation of the SLDs in the western channel should be less related to the Kuroshio region. This result also implies that the variation of SLD in the western channel is largely influenced by local factors, such as the bottom cold water in the western channel in summer, rather than from the Kuroshio region.

• Journal of the korean society of oceanography
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.107-116
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• 1996

A shallow water numerical model is established to investigate the response of coastal water in the Korea Strait to typhoons that pass nearby the Korea Strait. Atmospheric pressure and wind by Fujita's formula (1952) and Miyazaki et al. (1961), respectively are used in the model. The model results show an agreement fair with the observation partially, but poor with the amplitude of the sea level variation. In particular, the discrepancy is larger in a typhoon passing through right side than that through left side of the Korea Strait. The model showes that the disagreement between the model and the observation can be caused by numerically unrealistic distributions of armospheric pressure and wind around the strait. In the Korea Strait the isostatic effects in the model were underestimated, whereas the wind fields were overestimated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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• v.1
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• pp.91-96
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• 2006

International law provides for fundamental navigational rights called the right of transit passage in international straits as defined by UNCLOS. However, the Australian government published Marine Notice 8/2006 and the associated Part 54 of Australian Marine Orders which requires ships transiting the Torres Strait to engage the services of a pilot and imposes significant penalties for non-compliance on the basis of the IMO MEPC 133(53) which is just a resolution as a recommendation. This paper aims to study legal aspects in UNCLOS on the pilotage in the Torres Strait following the extension of the Great Barrier Reef PSSA neighbouring Australia.

• Journal of the korean society of oceanography
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.87-100
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• 2003

The monthly observations of hydrography in the Cheju Strait from September 1995 to June 1998 show that the Cheju Strait is occupied mostly by Tsushima Current Water in winter and coastal waters in summer. In summer, the Yangtze Coastal Water appears in the upper layer and cold water in the lower layer. Especially, the Yellow Sea Bottom Cold Water appears in August 1997, and the clockwise flow of warm water along the northwestern coasts of Cheju Island is disturbed by an eastward expansion of the cold water from the northwest. The cold water expansion seems to be partly associated with strong southeasterly winds. Current measurements in the Cheju Strait suggest that there exists steady eastward barotropic component of about 5 cm/sec, which corresponds to 0.2 Sv barotropic transport in the Cheju Strait. Geostropic transport (baroclinic component) ranges from 0.1 Sv in winter to 0.4 Sv in summer. By adding the barotrophic component of 0.2 Sv, the total transport varies from 0.3 Sv to 0.6 Sv, which is consistent with previous estimations. The transport increase in summer seems to be caused by the expansion of coastal water to the Cheju Strait.

• Journal of the korean society of oceanography
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.170-178
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• 2000

Low salinity water was observed during May in the Cheju Strait. Its structure and source were studied by using both the hydrographic data collected not only in the Cheju Strait during 1987-1989 but also in the wider area around Cheju Island extending to the Bank of Changjiang river in 1994 and the current data taken in the Strait during 1987-1989. The water had lower values of temperature, salinity, and density compared with the surrounding water and it was found in the surface layer outside of Tsushima Current Water 10-50 km off Cheju coast. The density of low salinity water was more dependent on salinity than on temperature. The low salinity water flowed into the Strait from the west as a series of intermittent waters whose size was variable in width and in thickness. The low salinity water was originated from the Chanajiang River Diluted Water. In the Cheju Strait, the water showed changes within 3 days on time and 30-50 km on space, and its sudden appearance was marked especially in May. Such strong variability and sudden appearance may be attributed to the beginning stage in May when the fresh water of Changjiang River Diluted Water starts to arrive in the Cheju Strait.

• Journal of the korean society of oceanography
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2003

A time-series sediment trap was deployed at a depth of 1034 m in the eastern Bransfield Strait from December 25, 1998 to December 24, 1999. Particle fluxes showed large seasonal variation; about 99% of the annual total mass flux (49 g m/sup -2/) was collected during the austral summer and fall (January-March). Settling particles consisted primarily of biogenic silica, organic carbon, calcium carbonate, and lithogenic material. Biogenic silica and lithogenic material predominated settling particles, comprising 36% and 30% of the total mass flux, respectively, followed by organic carbon, 11% and calcium carbonate, merely 0.6%. The annual organic carbon flux was 5.4 g C m/sup -2/ at 1000 m in the eastern Bransfield Strait, which is greater than the central Strait flux. The relatively lower flux of organic carbon in the central Bransfield Strait may be caused by a stronger surface current in this region. Organic carbon flux estimates in the eastern Bransfield Strait are the highest in the Southern Ocean, perhaps because of the fast sinking of fecal pellets, which leads to less decomposition of organic material in the water column. Approximately 5.8% of the organic carbon produced on the surface in the eastern Bransfield Strait is exported down to 1000 m; this percentage exceeds the maximum EF/sub 1000/ values observed in the Atlantic and Southern Oceans. The eastern Bransfield Strait appears to be the most important site of organic carbon export to the deep sea in the Southern Ocean.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers Conference
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• 1995.10a
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• pp.9-12
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• 1995

The Korea Strait becomes deeper than 200 m from south to north in general except coastal area, whereas its southern part is shallower than 125 m except for a deep trough (Fig.1). The flow in the Korea Strait could be simplified as two layers (Isobe, 1995)； the Tsushima Warm Water in the upper layer and the Korea Strait Bottom Cold Water (KSBCW) in the lower layer (Fig.2). (omitted)