Kuroshio small meander southeast Kyushu and mesoscale eddies

Hihara Tsutomu, Kubota Masahisa, Setou Takashi, Shimizu Manabu, Ambe Daisuke

doi:10.5928/kaiyou.22.4_119

<p>The meander of Kuroshio southeast of Kyushu is well known as Kuroshio small meander. Many previous studies pointed out the impact of mesoscale eddies in generating of Kuroshio small meander. Accordingly, we investigated the relationship between Kuroshio small meander and mesoscale eddies defined by a winding-angle method. First, examining the frequency of Kuroshio small meander, we showed that Kuroshio small meanders having a relatively large spatiotemporal scale occurred 16 times from 1993 to 2006. Second, from the tracks of an eddy in the Kuroshio recirculation region, we found that a relatively large-scale meander tends to occur when an anticyclonic (cyclonic) eddy is located in the southern (eastern) region southeast of Kyushu. Therefore, we conclude that the location of a mesoscale eddy near Kyushu is important for the development of Kuroshio small meander. We showed that a mesoscale eddy approaching to east coast of Taiwan is the generating factor of Kuroshio small meander. Furthermore, we found that a relatively large-scale meander does not occur when the Kuroshio axis is located south of 32°N off Omaezaki.</p>

Kuroshio small meander southeast Kyushu and mesoscale eddies

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