Based on the observation at the Hayasui Straits, actual conditions of the tidal mixing, of two water masses separated by the strait, are investigated for the time scale shorter than the the tidal period. Analyses show that the tidal mixing of water masses occurs by the disintegration of mutually penetrating small masses of water, which have been produced by the reciprocating tidal motion of the water masses with some topographical effect, especially at the slack water as large tongues. The mutual penetration occurs rather horizontally, and some of these turbulent smaller masses of water keep their own properties for a rather long period of the order of three hours, without mixing even in the violent shear flows. Initial horizontal scale of these turbulent masses is estimated as of the order of three kilometers. These actual conditions reveal themselves as the macroscopic diffusion coefficient.

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Composite pictures of the areal extent of Antarctic sea ice derived from satellite photographs, show that the growth and the rate of growth of the pack ice compare favorably to the values previously estimated on other bases. Anomalous growth patterns are found in the Weddell Sea. Possible causes of this anomaly include surface and subsurface advection of ice crystals. The rate of retrogradation of the pack ice is found to exceed the rate of progradation.

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Some numerical experiments were made to examine the possibility of large anticlockwise circulation at Lake Biwa in summer caused by horizontally uniform heat flux across the lake surface. Flow is induced by the “topographic heat accumulation effect” due to the non-uniform water depth. To evaluate this flow, an axisymmetric model basin is used. Dependence of the magnitude of velocity on the horizontal and vertical Ekman numbers is also investigated. If the heating continues as long as the vertical diffusion time, fairly large velocity is created indicating a possibility that this is the origin of the lake current.

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Primary production in the Kuroshio current flowing around Taiwan Island was measured by using the radiocarbon method. High values of the daily primary production were found in both the aquacultural area at the western coast and the polluted area with raw rubbish heaps at the Keelung-Patoutzu coast. In the upwelling region of southeastern coast, low values of the primary production were observed. In the eastern coast, the rate of photosynthesis for an unit amount of chlorophyll α under the saturated light was in the range of 1.2 ± 0.2 mg C/mg chlorophyll a/hr. Some discussions are made on the observed results.

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A new method for a surface interpolation is proposed, in which the concept of splines under tension is applied. It is useful for the two-dimensional data analysis based on the non-linear fundamental equations in the physical oceanography.

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The elementary properties of internal Rossby waves in a horizontally infinite twolayer ocean with a uniform east-west current, apparently not previously reported in the literature, are documented.

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