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New Developments in Mode-Water Research pp 17–39Cite as

Review on North Pacific Subtropical Countercurrents and Subtropical Fronts: role of mode waters in ocean circulation and climate

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Abstract

A Subtropical Countercurrent (STCC) is a narrow eastward jet on the equator side of a subtropical gyre, flowing against the broad westward Sverdrup flow. Together with theories, recent enhanced observations and model simulations have revealed the importance of mode waters in the formation and variability of North Pacific STCCs. There are three distinct STCCs in the North Pacific, maintained by low potential vorticity (PV) that mode waters carry from the north. Model simulations show that changes in mode water ventilation result in interannual to interdecadal variations and long-term changes of STCCs. STCCs affect the atmosphere through their surface thermal effects, inducing anomalous cyclonic wind curl and precipitation along them. Thus, mode waters are not merely passive water masses but have dynamical and climatic effects. For temporal variability, atmospheric forcings are also suggested to be important in addition to the variability of mode waters. STCCs exist in other oceans and they are also flanked by mode waters on their poleward sides, suggesting that they are maintained by similar dynamics.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Prof. Shang-Ping Xie for many fruitful discussion and comments. Constructive comments from anonymous reviewers greatly helped improve the manuscript. This study is partially supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan [20740267, 22106007, 23340139]. The altimeter product was produced by Ssalto/ Duacs and distributed by AVISO, with support from CNES. The SST dataset was obtained from the NOAA website.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Marine Technology, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, Etchujima 2-1-6, Koto-ku, Tokyo, 135-8533, Japan

    Fumiaki Kobashi

  2. Research Institute for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokosuka, Japan

    Fumiaki Kobashi

  3. Faculty of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

    Atsushi Kubokawa

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Correspondence to Fumiaki Kobashi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

    Atsushi Kubokawa

  2. International Pacific Research Center and Department of Meteorology, SOEST, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

    Shang-Ping Xie

  3. Faculty of Marine Technology, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, Tokyo, Japan

    Fumiaki Kobashi

  4. Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

    Humio Mitsudera

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© 2011 The Oceanographic Society of Japan and Springer

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Kobashi, F., Kubokawa, A. (2011). Review on North Pacific Subtropical Countercurrents and Subtropical Fronts: role of mode waters in ocean circulation and climate. In: Kubokawa, A., Xie, SP., Kobashi, F., Mitsudera, H. (eds) New Developments in Mode-Water Research. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54162-2_2

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