Surface circulation in the southwestern Japan/East Sea as observed from drifters and sea surface height

The mean circulation of the surface layer of the southwestern Japan/East Sea (JES) was examined using current measurements collected at 15 m by satellite-tracked drifters and merged sea level anomalies from satellite altimeters. The study of circulation patterns in this paper focused on the inflow passing through the western channel of the Korea Strait from the East China Sea. Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis of non-seasonal sea level anomalies revealed that significant energy in the circulation pattern of Ulleung Basin was controlled by the inflow conditions through the Korea Strait. Three circulation patterns were identified that depended on the initial relative vorticity of the inflow. When inflow had initially large negative vorticity, the flow gained more negative vorticity due to deepening of the bottom (stretching) and then turned right after entering the JES. The inflow then followed the path of the Tsushima Warm Current along the coast of Japan. When the inflow was strong, with a speed in excess of 55 cm/s and with a large positive vorticity, potential vorticity appeared to be conserved. In this case, the EKWC followed isobaths along the coast and then left the coast, following topographic features north of Ulleung-Do. The northward flowing jet developed inertial meandering after leaving the coast, which is a characteristic of many western boundary currents. The regular, bimonthly deployments of drifters in the western portion of the Korea Strait revealed that splitting or branching of the flow through the western channel of the Korea Strait occurred only 15% of the time. And splitting or branching rarely occurred during the fall and winter seasons, when the inflow splitting was previously reported in hydrographic surveys. The time-averaged circulation map of the EKWC and its seaward extension were considerably enhanced by using regularly sampled geostrophic velocities calculated from sea level anomalies to remove biases in the mean velocity that were caused by irregular spatial and temporal drifter observations. The East Korean Warm Current, a mean coastal current along the Korean coast, behaved like the simple model by Arruda et al. (2004) in which the generation of the Ulleung Warm Eddy and the meandering circulation pattern were well reproduced.