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 areconsidered to be indications of Kuroshio transport in Tokara Strait and Kuroshiopath south of Enshu-nada. respectively.
In the sea level difference between Kushimoto and Uragami, dominant variationsare found to have periods of about seven years and 3-4 years. The variation ofabout 7-year period, which corresponds to that in the Kuroshio path between thelarge meander and non-large meander, is coherent with the variation of the windstress curl in a region about 2, 400km east of the Kii Peninsula, where negativestress curl weakens about two years before the sea level difference drops (i.e. thelarge meander path in the Kuroshio generates). The variation of the 3-4 yearperiod is coherent with that of the wind stress in a large area covering the easternequatorial Pacific, which suggests that it links with global-scale atmospheric variations.
Interannual variation in sea level difference between Naze and Nishinoomoteis not coherent with that between Kushimoto and Uragami, which suggests that itis not related to the variation of the Kuroshio path south of Enshu-nada, but iscoherent with that of the zonally-integrated Sverdrup transport in the latitudinalzone along 30KN. It is suggested that the interannual variation of the Kuroshiotransport in Tokara Strait can be explained by the barotropic response to the windstress.
