Comprehensive Literature Review of Kuroshio Meander Background: Kuroshio meanders around Ogasawara islands located in East Pacific Ocean since 2017, which is an irregular move and its dynamics have been almost clear but not completely yet. Its mysterious one firstly led my inspiration to this project. Also, it is generally described as linking to global climate topics like El Nino and major winds across Pacific Ocean. Aims of This Research: My research aims are to organize and summarize the research progress of Kuroshio meander dynamics and influences. Therefore, literature review should be the aim and methodology of this final project. Literature Review: There are three pillars of a comprehensive literature review. In the literature review chapter, I firstly explore the connection the general physical properties of Kuroshio and the lecture contents such as ENSO and telecommunication. Also, it reviews the major winds across the Pacific Ocean. Second part attempts to go into a summary of the written literature about irregular circulation. Finally, the literature written about interplay of Kuroshio and Global Climate Change is given in this research.
MA Sustainability, Shinichi Inaba
Result A: Steps for Eddy Generation in Pacific Ocean The dynamics to generate eddy should be significant role for understanding why Kuroshio Meanders, which generally emerges following steps from image A to C. Westerlies
Westerlies
Wind Stress
Ekman Transport
Ekman Transport
Wind Stress
Image: A
Trade Winds
Wind Stress
Wind Stress
Pacific Ocean Image: B
Trade Winds
Pacific Ocean Image: C
B: Physical Dynamics of Kuroshio Meander As mentioned in last section “Physical Mechanism of Eddy Generation in North Pacific Current”, eddy needs competing forces at different latitudes to emerge in the ocean. In order for the Kuroshio meander to occur, a physical force that acts in the opposite direction to the conventional Kuroshio flow is required. I understood one of the research groups has the hypothesis monsoon around Okinawa perhaps works for Kuroshio meander.
Monsoon
Effect of Monsoon Impact of seafloor topography Effect of Small Vortex Around Kyushu region.
C: El Nino and La Nina One of the well-known findings on the interplay between Kuroshio and ENSO have been the bifurcation latitude of the North Equatorial Current (NEC) that would go northward during El Nino in November and December, while La Nina in June and July pushes into southwards. The NEC bifurcates nominal is at 12N–13N. Climate in east Pacific Ocean make this bifurcation latitude change from 10N to 15N. That was brought by Bo Qiu in University of Hawaii. Those “tendency is due to the fact that the southern limb of the wind-driven subtropical gyre in the North Pacific shifts to the north with increasing depth due to the b-spiral effect.” (Qiu, 2019). Climate Influence of Kuroshio Meander and Conclusion It has been recorded that the summer temperature in Tokyo has been on the rise since 2017 as an effect on the climate due to the meandering of the Kuroshio Current. It is said that the meandering Kuroshio emits water vapor in the south of Tokyo, which is carried north by the monsoon, causing the greenhouse effect. It has also been pointed out that it affects the coral ecosystem in the Ogasawara Islands, but it is left to later research to evaluate whether these things are really independently caused by the meandering of the Kuroshio Current.