Abstract
Abstract. The Korea Strait (KS) is a major navigation passage linking the Japan Sea (JS) to the East China Sea and Yellow Sea. Almost all existing studies of the tides in the KS employed either data analysis or numerical modelling methods; thus, theoretical research is lacking. In this paper, we idealize the KS–JS basin as four connected uniform-depth rectangular areas and establish a theoretical model for the tides in the KS and JS using the extended Taylor method. The model-produced K1 and M2 tides are consistent with the satellite altimeter and tidal gauge observations, especially for the locations of the amphidromic points in the KS. The model solution provides the following insights into the tidal dynamics. The tidal system in each area can be decomposed into two oppositely travelling Kelvin waves and two families of Poincaré modes, with Kelvin waves dominating the tidal system. The incident Kelvin wave can be reflected at the connecting cross section, where abrupt increases in water depth and basin width occur from the KS to JS. At the connecting cross section, the reflected wave has a phase-lag increase relative to the incident wave of less than 180∘, causing the formation of amphidromic points in the KS. The above phase-lag increase depends on the angular velocity of the wave and becomes smaller as the angular velocity decreases. This dependence explains why the K1 amphidromic point is located farther away from the connecting cross section in comparison to the M2 amphidromic point.
Highlights
The Korea Strait (KS, called the Tsushima Strait) connects the East China Sea (ECS) to the southwest and the Japan Sea to the northeast
This method is especially useful in understanding the tidal dynamics in marginal seas and straits because the tidal waves in these sea areas can generally be represented by combinations of the Kelvin waves and Poincaré waves/modes (e.g. Taylor, 1922; Fang and Wang, 1966; Hendershott and Speranza, 1971; Webb, 1976; Fang et al, 1991; Carbajal, 1997; Jung et al, 2005; Roos and Schuttelaars, 2011; Roos et al, 2011; Wu et al, 2018)
As noted by Odamaki (1989b), the co-oscillating tides are dominant in the Japan Sea (JS), which is mainly induced by inputs at the opening of the KS rather than those through the Tsugaru Strait (TGS) and Soya Strait (SYS)
Summary
The Korea Strait (KS, called the Tsushima Strait) connects the East China Sea (ECS) to the southwest and the Japan Sea (the JS, called the East Sea, or the Sea of Japan) to the northeast. Many researchers have investigated the tides in the strait via observations (Odamaki, 1989a; Matsumoto et al, 2000; Morimoto et al, 2000; Teague et al, 2001; Takikawa et al, 2003) and numerical simulations (Fang and Yang, 1988; Kang et al, 1991; Choi et al, 1999; Book et al, 2004). The results of these studies show consistent structures of the tidal waves in the KS. The extended Taylor method enables us to obtain semi-analytical solutions consisting of a series of Kelvin waves and Poincaré modes
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