LAUSR

A long-term increasing trend in the transport of the Japan Sea Throughflow is observed from sea-level differences across the Tsushima Strait. Tidal gauge observations show sea level at Hakata, Japan, increasing at a higher rate than that at Busan, Korea. Numerical modeling results suggest that this increasing trend is forced by a northward shift in the Kuroshio axis. As the Kuroshio axis moves northward, sea level along the southern coast of Japan increases. The signal then propagates anticyclonically along the coast as topographic Rossby waves and Kelvin waves, raising sea level and, thus, increasing transport through the Tsushima Strait.