Outbreak of warm water from the Kuroshio South of Japan

Abstract

During the concentrated observation (April–May 1988) conducted as a part of the Ocean Mixed Layer Experiment (OMLET) in the sea area south of Japan, a conspicuous outbreak of warm water occurred from the large-meander region of the Kuroshio toward the southwest in the direction of the former Ocean Weather Station “T”. A series of NOAA-AVHRR infrared images clearly showed the process of this event. A surface buoy-mooring system deployed in this experiment recorded the arrival of this outbreak of water, in terms of the rise of sea-surface temperature (SST) of 1.5°C and the flow of warm water of 1.5kt toward the northwest at “T”. We studied this phenomenon by combining time series of infrared SST images with the oceanographic data obtained by two research vessels. The warm water was about 100 m deep in the section at 137°E along the edge of the Off-Shikoku Warm Water. It was estimated that about twenty outbreaks of this kind in a year can compensate a large heat loss to the atmosphere above this ocean region.