대한해협과 대만해협에서 해수면 고도의 연변화

Abstract

The magnitude of the annual variation of sea surface height across the Taiwan Strait from the TOPEX/Poseidon altimeter data reaches up to +/- 20cm while it is less than half (< +/- 10cm) across the Korea Strait. One of the reasons comes from the different current system between the two; the Tsushima Warm Current is the only major current flowing northeastwards through the Korea Strait all the year round and the annual difference of the water transport is more or less 1.0 Sv. The Taiwan Warm Current is basically a mixture of the Kuroshio and the South China Sea waters, which is overlaid or partially blocked by the cold East China Sea water from the opposite direction during the winter monsoon. The difference of the net northeastward transport across the Taiwan Strait reaches about 1.6 Sv between summer and winter. These values match quite well with those of the monthly-mean sea level differences obtained from the in situ tide gauge stations across the straits. In order to get the useful coastal data from satellite altimetry, more efforts should be devoted to refining and operationally applying them to fit the regional dynamics.