Connectivity among straits of the northwest Pacific marginal seas

Abstract

The connectivity among straits of the northwest Pacific marginal seas is investigated with a primitive‐equation ocean circulation model simulated for 10 years from 1994 to 2003. Over the simulation interval the temporal and spatial means and variations of the model sea surface temperature are comparable to those of the satellite sea surface temperature. The model transport through the straits shows good agreement with the available observations and a high seasonality in the Taiwan Strait, the Korea Strait, and the Soya Strait but relatively low seasonality in the Tsugaru Strait. The Kuroshio and Taiwan Warm Current (TWC) are two sources of water flowing through the Korea Strait. The volume transport in the Korea Strait is dominated by the Kuroshio in winter (83%) and by the TWC in summer (66%). Relative to the transport through the Korea Strait, the transport percentages of the Tsugaru Strait connecting to the northwest Pacific Ocean are 79% in winter and 65% in summer. The seasonality of the Korea Strait transport is positively correlated with the cross‐strait wind stress. The drifter experiments show that it takes about 4 months for most of the drifters deployed in the Taiwan Strait to enter the Korea Strait and more than 2 months to travel from the Korea Strait to the Tsugaru and Soya straits.