Kuroshio Observation Program: Towards Real-Time Monitoring the Japanese Coastal Waters

The challenge of predicting the Japanese coastal ocean motivated Frontier Observational Research System for Global Change (FORSGC) and the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center (JAMSTEC) to start a multiyear observational programme in the upstream Kuroshio in November 2000. This field effort, the Kuroshio Observation Program (KOP), should enable us to determine the barotropic and baroclinic components of the western boundary current system, thus, to better understand interactions of the currents with mesoscale eddies, the Kuroshio instabilities, and path bimodality. We, then, will be able to improve modeling predictability of the mesoscale, seasonal, and inter-annual processes in the midstream Kuroshio near the Japanese main islands by using this knowledge. The KOP is focused on an enhanced regional coverage of the sea surface height variability and the baroclinic structure of the mainstream Kuroshio in the East China Sea, the Ryukyu Current east of the Ryukyu's, and the Kuroshio recirculation. An attractive approach of the KOP is a development of a new data acquisition system via acoustic telemetry of the observational data. The monitoring system will provide observations for assimilation into extensive numerical models of the ocean circulation, targeting the real-time monitoring of the Japanese coastal waters.