Аннотация:In an effort to investigate the structure and variability of the coastal current in the East Sea, a moored ADCP observation was conducted off Uljin from late May to mid-October 2006. Owing to the transition of season from summer to autumn, the features of the current and wind can be divided into two parts. Until mid-August (Part-I), a southward flow is dominant at all depths with a mean alongshore velocity of 4.2~8.9 cm/s but northward winds are not strong enough to reverse the near-surface current. During Part-II, a strong northward current occurs frequently in the upper layer but winds are predominantly southward including two typhoons that have deep-reaching influence. Profile of mean velocity has three layers with a northward velocity embedded at 12~28 m depth. The near-surface current of Part-II significantly coheres with winds at 4-8 day periods with a phase lag of about 12 hours. The modal structure of the current obtained by EOF analysis is: (1) Mode-1, having 83.6% of total variance, represents the current in the same direction at all depths corresponding to the southward North Korean Cold Current (NKCC). (2) Mode-2 (11.7%) reveals a two-layer structure that can be explained by the northward East Korean Warm Current (EKWC) in the upper layer and NKCC in the lower. (3) Mode-3 (2.6%) has three layers, in which the EKWC is reversed near the surface by opposing winds. This mode is particularly similar to the mean velocity profile of Part-II.
