Dynamic Processes in the East China Sea and Its Adjacent Ocean

1 Dynamic Processes in the East China Sea and Its Adjacent Ocean 

The ECS circulation is dominated by the northward flow of two loops of the Kuroshio Current the Taiwan Warm Water in the west and the Yellow Sea Warm Water in the east. Both water masses are characterized by high salinity and warm water temperatures. In contrast, the southward flow in near bottom water occurs from the flow of the Changjiang River and Jiangsu Coastal Waters along the Chinese coast, the Korean Coastal Waters in the east, and the Yellow Sea Cold Water in the north (Fig. 4.1, Lee and Chao, 2003). The coastal currents in particular appear as seasonally cold and brackish water 

Large and positive latent and sensible heat fluxes are found in the Kuroshio and the warm eddy east of the Kuroshio core, which is a high temperature region. This shows that the distributions of latent and sensible heat fluxes 

The monthly mean net flux has a distinct seasonal variation and the heat flux is transferred from ocean to atmosphere in January and from atmosphere to ocean in July in the Yellow Sea and ECS. 

The early development process of cyclones is very important in the ECS and a definite fact is that the heat fluxes are transferred from ocean to atmosphere, in which the latent heat flux is not only more important than the sensible heat flux but is about 20 times that of the sensible heat flux. The heat fluxes transferred from ocean to atmosphere accelerate the instability of the atmosphere in the lower layer, which is one of the important causes leading to a cyclone developing in the ECS. 

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