INTRODUCTION

How is the heat transported from the tropics by the Kuroshio redistributed in the presence of the nonlinear interactions that dominate Kuroshio Extension dynamics?

The Kuroshio Extension System Study is a proposed multi-institutional international study designed to investigate the Kuroshio Extension System from 2001 to 2005. The goal is to understand the mechanisms that govern the Kuroshio Extension and associated recirculation gyre variability, and to identify the processes responsible for interannual variations of upper-ocean heat content and sea surface temperature in the region.

An acoustic tomography array has been maintained by JAMSTEC from July to September 1997.

Project Objectives

Demonstrate the capability of the tomographic techniques in monitoring the variability of the 1000 km-scale three-dimensional oceanic structures.

Obtain information about the of acoustic environment for the design of the tomography array in the KESS program.

Location map of the Kuroshio Extension tomography experiment with the path of major currents and the frontal position. Thick solid lines connecting transceiver stations T1-T5 show the acoustic ray paths projected on the horizontal section. Thin solid lines show the ground tracks of the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite.

Here, we focus on comparison of acoustic tomography and TOPEX/POSEIDON altimeter measurements.