Abstract
Relationships of the sea level differences between Naze and Nishinoomote and between Kushimoto and Uragami with wind stress over the North Pacific are examined for interannual variability. These sea level differences are considered to be indications of Kuroshio transport in Tokara Strait and Kuroshio path south of Enshu-nada, respectively.
In the sea level difference between Kushimoto and Uragami, dominant variations are found to have periods of about seven years and 3–4 years. The variation of about 7-year period, which corresponds to that in the Kuroshio path between the large meander and non-large meander, is coherent with the variation of the wind stress curl in a region about 2,400 km east of the Kii Peninsula, where negative stress curl weakens about two years before the sea level difference drops (i.e. the large meander path in the Kuroshio generates). The variation of the 3–4 year period is coherent with that of the wind stress in a large area covering the eastern equatorial Pacific, which suggests that it links with global-scale atmospheric variations.
Interannual variation in sea level difference between Naze and Nishinoomote is not coherent with that between Kushimoto and Uragami, which suggests that it is not related to the variation of the Kuroshio path south of Enshu-nada, but is coherent with that of the zonally-integrated Sverdrup transport in the latitudinal zone along 30°N. It is suggested that the interannual variation of the Kuroshio transport in Tokara Strait can be explained by the barotropic response to the wind stress.
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Kutsuwada, K. Interannual correlations between sea level difference at the south coast of Japan and wind stress over the north pacific. Journal of the Oceanographical Society of Japan 44, 68–80 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02303122
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02303122