Study of the tidal dynamics of the Korea Strait using the extended Taylor method

Abstract

The Korea Strait (KS) is a major navigation passage linking the Japan Sea (JS) to the East China Sea and Yellow Sea. Almost all existing studies of the tides in the KS employed either data analysis or numerical modelling methods; thus, theoretical research is lacking. In this paper, we idealize the KS–JS basin as four connected uniform-depth rectangular areas and establish a theoretical model for the tides in the KS and JS using the extended Taylor method. The model-produced K1 and M2 tides are consistent with the satellite altimeter and tidal gauge observations, especially for the locations of the amphidromic points in the KS. The model solution provides the following insights into the tidal dynamics. The tidal system in each area can be decomposed into two oppositely travelling Kelvin waves and two families of Poincaré modes, with Kelvin waves dominating the tidal system. The incident Kelvin wave can be reflected at the connecting cross section, where abrupt increases in water depth and basin width occur from the KS to JS. At the connecting cross section, the reflected wave has a phase-lag increase relative to the incident wave of less than 180∘, causing the formation of amphidromic points in the KS. The above phase-lag increase depends on the angular velocity of the wave and becomes smaller as the angular velocity decreases. This dependence explains why the K1 amphidromic point is located farther away from the connecting cross section in comparison to the M2 amphidromic point.