In this study, the U.S. Navy’s Generalized Digital Environmental Model (GDEM) climatological temperature and salinity data on a 0.58 3 0.58 grid is used to investigate the seasonal variabilities of the Japan/East Sea (JES) thermohaline structure and circulations. The GDEM for the JES was built up on historical (1930–97) 136 509 temperature and 52 572 salinity profiles. A three-dimensional estimate of the absolute geostrophic velocity field was obtained from the GDEM temperature and salinity fields using the P-vector method. The seasonal variabilities of the thermohaline structure and the inverted currents such as the Subpolar Front, the salinity minimum and maximum in the Japan Sea Intermediate Water, and the Tsushima Warm Current and its bifurcation are identified. 1.

A little over a decade ago, Waldichuk (1990) reviewed the state of industrial and domestic pollution of the North Pacific and concluded that interfaces (e.g., air-water, water-sediment,

In this study, the U.S. Navy’s Generalized Digital Environmental Model (GDEM) climatological temperature and salinity data on a 0.58 3 0.58 grid is used to investigate the seasonal variabilities of the Japan/East Sea (JES) thermohaline structure and circulations. The GDEM for the JES was built up on historical (1930–97) 136 509 temperature and 52 572 salinity profiles. A three-dimensional estimate of the absolute geostrophic velocity field was obtained from the GDEM temperature and salinity fields using the P-vector method. The seasonal variabilities of the thermohaline structure and the inverted currents such as the Subpolar Front, the salinity minimum and maximum in the Japan Sea Intermediate Water, and the Tsushima Warm Current and its bifurcation are identified. 1.

Abstract not found

Sea surface temperature fields in the East Sea are composed of various spatial structures such as eddies, fronts, filaments, turbulent-like features and other mesoscale variations associated with the oceanic circulations of the East Sea. These complex SST structures have many spatial scales and evole with time. Semi-monthly averaged SST distributions based on extensive satellite observations of SSTs from 1990 through 1995 were constructed to examine the characteristics of their spatial and temporal scale variations by using statistical methods of multi-dimensional autocorrelation functions and spectral analysis. Two-dimensional autocorrelation functions in the central part of the East Sea revealed that most of the spatial SST structures are anisotropic in the shape of ellipsoids with minor axes of about 90–290 km and major axes of 100–400 km. Two dimensional spatial scale analysis demonstrated a consistent pattern of seasonal variation that the scales appear small in winter and spring, increase gradually to summer, and then decrease again until the spring of the next year. These structures also show great spatial inhomogeneity and rapid temporal change on time scales as short as a semi-month in some cases. The slopes in spectral energy density spectra of SSTs show characteristics quite similar to horizontal and geostrophic turbulence. Temporal spectra at each latitude are demonstrated by predominant peaks of one and two cycles per year in all regions of the East Sea, implying that SSTs present very strong annual and semi-annual variations. Keywords: ⋅Sea surface temperature, ⋅ semi-monthly averaged SST, ⋅ spatial and temporal scales, ⋅ autocorrelation functions, ⋅ seasonal variations, ⋅geostrophic turbulence.

pen A ccess Modes of zonal mean temperature variability 20–100 km from the TIMED/SABER observations