• Korea and Global Affairs
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.137-162
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• 2018

This paper covers the issues including geopolitical effects of sea power on sea space in East Asia and its nature in a perspective of the past and the present. This paper analyzes the significance of Sea Power which is emphasized in Mahan's Theory of Insular Dominance and grasps the geopolitical nature of Sea Power. Along with this awareness, it deals with the problem of designated strategic phenomenon that is spreading to the Pacific Ocean with the concept of the Island Chain in China in the 21st century. Around the turn of 20th century, Japan materialized the policy of Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere which was planned to expand power sphere in sea space in the East Asia based on sea power and China took shape of the concept of Island Chain in the 21st century, which has divided sea space in East Asia. Under the circumstance that China's policy of island chain faced the resistance from countries in the East Asia as well as the USA, the question about whether Korea's policy of depending on sea power is valuable even in the 21st century has been raised.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Environmental Biology Conference
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• 2001.12a
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• pp.76-77
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• 2001

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.135-141
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• 2004

Drift data from 17 Argo profiling floats in the East Sea are used to understand the mean flow and its variability in the upper portion of the East Sea Proper Water (UESPW) (around 800 m). The flow penetrates into the Ulleung basin (UB) through two paths: an extension of the southward flowing of the North Korean Cold Water along the east coast of Korea and between Ulleung Island and Dok island. Flows at 800 m are observed in the range of from 0.2 to 4.29 cms-1 and the variability in the north of the UB is larger than that in the south of the UB. In the UB, cyclonic flows from 0.3 to 1.6 cms-1 are observed with the bottom topography. We found that the mean kinetic energy (MKE) and the mean eddy kinetic energy (EKE) are 1.3 and 2.1 cm2s-2 respectively.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.1171-1179
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• 2009

The solitary ascidian, Halocynthia aurantium, which is commonly called the sea peach because of its coloration and general shape, is a valuable organism of benthic marine population in the northern region of the East Sea, Korea. It is seldom found at a depth of less than 10 meters and the sea peach is frequently observed in large populations between 20 and 100 meters. It appears to prefer attachment to vertical rocks faces and artificial cement blocks exposed to the currents. Mass mortality and reduction of resources in sea peach, H. aurantium, were occurred in the benthic area of the northern region of the East Sea because of the rapid fluctuation of environmental factors such as temperature and salinity due to mass rainfall in summer and going up north of a strong warm current in winter. Therefore, we examined the effects of temperature and salinity on embryonic development of fertilized eggs, tadpole larva to metamorphosis, and attachment to siphon development. Laboratory-raised larvae were studied using a two-factorial experimental design with four levels of temperature(8, 12, 16 and $20^{\circ}C$) and four levels of salinity(20, 25, 30 and 34 psu). The ascidian larvae of H. aurantium survived environmental conditions between temperature of $8{\sim}20^{\circ}C$ and salinity of 25~34 psu and exhibited positive growth at $8{\sim}16^{\circ}C$ and 30~34 psu. Fertilized eggs have not developed at lower salinity of 20 psu irrespective of temperature range tested and have showed an abnormal development at the salinity of 25 psu between higher temperatures of 20 and $24^{\circ}C$. This result suggests that temperature increase and salinity reduction depending on environmental fluctuation may have significant impacts on population variation of H. aurantium in the northern region of the East Sea.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.147-152
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• 2002

Seasonal and interannual variation of volume transport through the La-Perouse Strait were estimated using the difference of sea level observed at Krillion of Sakhalin, Russia, and Wakkanai of Hokkaido, Japan, during the period of 1975-1988. Historical sea level measurements between Russian and Japanese tide gauge data were normalized using an independent direct volume transport measurement. Volume transport from the East Sea (Sea of Japan) to the Sea of Okhotsk varied from -0.01 to 1.18 Sv with an annual mean value of 0.61 Sv. Monthly water transport rates showed a unimodal distribution with its maximum occurring in summer (August) and minimum in winter (December-February). The annual mean volume transport varied from 0.2 to 0.8 Sv during the period of 1975-1988 with the maximum variance of 0.6 Sv.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.99-111
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• 2022

Together with the development of measurement techniques, radiocarbon (¹⁴C) has been increasingly used as a key tool to investigate carbon cycling and associated biogeochemistry in the ocean. In this paper, the current status of radiocarbon studies in the East Sea (Japan Sea) is reviewed. Previously, spatiotemporal distribution and change of the water masses in the East Sea from 1979 to 1999 were investigated by using the ¹⁴C in the dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). Researches on sinking particulate organic carbon (POC) revealed that POC in the deep ocean has more complex and heterogeneous origins than we expected. In particular, since 2011, Korean researchers have been collecting sinking particle samples for more than 10 years, so it is expected that ¹⁴C of POC will provide important information to understand carbon cycling in relation to climate change. Although the quantity of ¹⁴C data published in the East Sea is still limited, the importance and the future direction of using ¹⁴C to understand the biogeochemical mechanisms of carbon cycling and its role as a carbon reservoir in the East Sea are detailed herein.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.259-270
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• 2016

Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) observations from the Aquarius satellite in the East Sea show large systematic biases mainly caused by the surrounding lands and Radio Frequency Interferences (RFI) along the descending orbits on which the satellite travels from the Asian continent to the East Sea. To develop a technique for correcting the systematic biases unique to the East Sea, the least square regression between in situ observations of salinity and the reanalyzed salinities by HYCOM is first performed. Then monthly mean reanalyzed salinities fitted to the in situ salinities are compared with monthly mean Aquarius salinities to calculate mean biases in $1^{\circ}{\times}1^{\circ}$ boxes. Mean biases in winter (December-March) are found to be considerably larger than those in other seasons possibly caused by the inadequate correction of surface roughness in the sea surrounded by the land, and thus the mean bias corrections are performed using two bias tables. Large negative biases are found in the area near the coast of Japan and in the areas with islands. In the northern East Sea, data sets using the ascending orbit only (SCIA) are chosen for correction because of large RFI errors on the descending orbit (SCID). Resulting mean biases between the reanalysis salinities fitted to in situ observations and the bias corrected Aquarius salinities are less than 0.2 psu in all areas. The corrected mean salinity distributions in March and September demonstrate marked improvements when compared with mean salinities from the World Ocean Atlas (WOA [2005-2012]). In September, salinity distributions based on the corrected Aquarius and on the WOA (2005-2012) show similar distributions of Changjiang Diluted Water (CDW) in the East Sea.

• Atmosphere
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.293-309
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• 2020

There are lots of indices that define the intensity of East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) in climate systems. This paper assesses the prediction skill for EASM indices in a Global Seasonal Forecasting System (GloSea5) that is currently operating at KMA. Total 5 different types of EASM indices (WNPMI, EAMI, WYI, GUOI, and SAHI) are selected to investigate how well GloSea5 reproduces them using hindcasts with 12 ensemble members with 1~3 lead months. Each index from GloSea5 is compared to that from ERA-Interim. Hindcast results for the period 1991~2010 show the highest prediction skill for WNPMI which is defined as the difference between the zonal winds at 850 hPa over East China Sea and South China Sea. WYI, defined as the difference between the zonal winds of upper and lower level over the Indian Ocean far from East Asia, is comparatively well captured by GloSea5. Though the prediction skill for EAMI which is defined by using meridional winds over areas of East Asia and Korea directly affected by EASM is comparatively low, it seems that EAMI is useful for predicting the variability of precipitation by EASM over East Asia. The regressed atmospheric fields with EASM index and the correlation with precipitation also show that GloSea5 best predicts the synoptic environment of East Asia for WNPMI among 5 EASM indices. Note that the result in this study is limited to interpret only for GloSea5 since the prediction skill for EASM index depends greatly on climate forecast model systems.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.120-135
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• 1996

The characteristics and fluctuations of structures and spatial distributions of thermal fronts and warm eddy in the Southeastern part of the East sea are discussed based on the data collected by the Naval Academy, Korea during Feb. 6-9, May 9-19 and Oct. 12-18, 1995. The thermal fronts existed very often at the sea off the Pohang-Ulsan, The generation of the thermal front is related with the development of the North Korea Cold Current. The warm eddy is located in the central part of the Ulleung basin where the local depth exceeds 1500m. This warm eddy is a major contributor to mass transport in the northern part of the East Sea. It is evident that knowledge of warm eddy is important in understanding the circulation in the western part of the East Sea.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.72-80
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• 2007

The tsunami that resulted from the Central East sea Earthquake, which registered 7.7 on the Richter scale, that occurred over the entire water region in Akita on May. 26, 1983 and the tsunami that was triggered by the Southwest off Hokkaido Earthquake (7.8 on the Richter scale) that occurred in Southwest off Hokkaido on July 12, 1993 are representative cases that led to considerable damage in life and property, not only in Japan but also in Korea. In this study, multi-grid method was used in order to reproduce sufficiently the shoaling effect that occurs as water depth becomes shallow in the shallow water region and moving boundary condition was introduced to consider the runup in the coastal region. For the tsunamis that exerted considerable effect on the East Sea coast of Korea that were caused by the Central East Sea Earthquake in 1983 and the Southwest off Hokkaido Earthquake in 1993, characteristics like water level rise and propagation in the East Sea coast will be examined using numerical simulations. At the same time, these values will be compared with observed values. In addition, maximum water level rise and change in the water level with respect to time that were caused by the tsunamis were examined at each location along the East sea coast. Usefulness of numerical analysis was verified by comparing with observed values.