Oceanography in Japan
Online ISSN : 2186-3105
Print ISSN : 0916-8362
ISSN-L : 0916-8362
Volume 23, Issue 5
Displaying 1-2 of 2 articles from this issue
The paper for the 2013 Prize of the Oceanographic Society of Japan
  • Shoshiro Minobe
    2014 Volume 23 Issue 5 Pages 147-169
    Published: September 15, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: February 01, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    Two major fluids of the earth are the ocean and the atmosphere, each of which influence the other. The influence of the atmosphere onto the ocean is strong and clear, while the opposing oceanic influence onto the atmosphere is not well understood. In this paper, several results of co-variability of the ocean and the atmosphere and interaction between them are introduced. Specific topics are seasonal variability over the tropical Pacific, decadal variability over and around the North Pacific, and mid-latitude air-sea interaction from a point of view of process-oriented studies. In order to identify oceanic impacts onto the atmosphere, especially using data analysis, it is useful to detect key features. Such key features are propagation signal commonly found in the atmosphere and the ocean with a speed of oceanic propagation for annual variability over the tropical Pacific, oscillation in the atmosphere for the decadal variability, and atmospheric signatures on oceanic spatial scales for the mid-latitude air-sea interactions. Some ideas behind the studies are also introduced.

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Original Paper
  • Jiro Yoshida, Eriko Maeta, Haruka Nakano, Hiroki Deguchi, Masao Nemoto
    2014 Volume 23 Issue 5 Pages 171-196
    Published: September 15, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: February 01, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    The Kuroshio Current path has been classified into three passes: typical Large Meander path (tLM), nearshore Non-Large Meander path (nNLM) and offshore Non-Large Meander path (oNLM). We investigated these paths in more detail statistically by Discriminant Analysis using Maharanobis Distance and K-mean method (Nonhierarchical Cluster Analysis). We used the sea level data along the southern coast of Japan and the Kuroshio Axis Dataset from January 1970 to December 2009. We defined the southern limit latitude of the axis of the Kuroshio between 136 and 142°E and the northern limit one between 136 and 140°E as indices of the Kuroshio path. We classified the Kuroshio paths into four paths: Large Meander West(LMW) path, Non-Large Meander North (NLMN) path, Non Large Meander South (NLMS) path and Large Meander East (LME) path. The LMW path corresponds to the tLM path, and the NLMN path corresponds to the nNLM path: however, both axis of the LME and the LMW extend beyond 32°N before approaching the Izu Islands, and both axis of the LME and the NLMS take the path to the south of Hachijyo-jima. In the period of the Kuroshio taking the path of LME, the sea levels at Hachijyo-jima and Kushimoto are low, indicating that the LME path is one of the paths hidden in the oNLM path. In this context, the oNLM path should be divided into the LME and the NLMS paths. We also discussed the transition processes among these four paths: the change of the NLNN path to the LMW path, following LMW->LME->NLMS->NLMN.

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