The sea-water in this district is nearly at rest in convection period (early October to April of the next year), but after the
spring strong current, which was defined in the previous report, strong currents are frequently observed and in the stratification period they are noticed almost every day. In the following lines, the “strong, ” “rather strong” and “weak” currents are termed according to the velocities, above 20cm/sec, 10 to 20cm/sec and below 10cm/sec respectively. The direction of the currents is exclusively north or south, being parallel to the shore of Isle Awasima.
Some accounts on the Velocities of “strong” and “rather strong” currents are given in several figures and tables in the text. The mean velocities of “strong” currents in 1934 and 1935 are as given in the following table:
Year South current North current
1934 42.9cm/sec (mean of 105 observations) 31.3cm/sec (mean of 19 obervations)
1935 34.0 ?? ( ?? ?? 77 ?? ) 28.3 ?? ( ?? ?? 15 ?? )
The current, either north or south, of the velocity above 10cm/sec is continually kept in general for about one and half hours.
In case of “weak” current, north or south, a group of the velocities of about 5cm/sec is the most predominant, but the velocities of 2-3cm/sec form another group in the frequency histogram of the velocity of south “weak” current on the average.
The relation between the time of occurence of “strong” current and tides is not clear. Generally, in the stratification period, “strong” currents happen almost every day with nearly the same time lag as that of tides often for more than ten days, but it sometimes takes place at the same o'clock every day without time lag as tides, and sometimes never occurs for a few days.
In April and May of 1935, the duration
T of the maintenance of flow in one sense was 7 hours on the average, but in the summer of the same year the direction of flow was changed more frequently,
T attaing its least value of 3.7 hours in August. From September to December 1935,
T was almost constantly 4.3-4.5 hours.
The effect of wind on the strength and the direction of current has not yet been studied. But the condition of wind in general is apparently different in the convection and in the stratification periods. In March, especially, the Japanese islands are frequented by conspicuous lines of discontinuity, running from north to south and forwarding to the east. Such a line of discontinuity is accompanied by southerly strong gale in the southern waters off Honsyu, and the spring strong current seemingly begins to occur a week or then days after those strong gales ont he open sea.
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