640 The Tropospheric Circulation 



correspondence to the piling-up effect ("Aufstau-Effekt") of the winterly north-west 

 monsoon. These values are in good agreement with direct current measurements at a 

 station in the current core. The total amount of water transported through this section 

 amounts to 21 million m^/sec in winter and about 23 million m^/sec in summer. 

 The Kuroshio and the Florida Current thus carry about the same amount of water. 



The Shiono-Misaki section has been evaluated both by Wiist and by Koenuma. 

 WUst thereby placed the reference-level at the upper limit of the weakly saline inter- 

 mediate water, at about the depth of the 10° isotherm; Koenuma on the other hand, 

 bases his calculations on velocities of 16 cm/sec of the intermediate water observed 

 in coastal areas moving there to the north-east and for larger distances from the coast 

 he assumed that the intermediate water was transported to the south-west at 5 cm/sec. 

 The two vertical velocity profiles independently found by both methods thus do not 

 agree. The velocity distribution obtained by Koenuma is in good agreement with 

 actual current measurements while the values obtained by WUst are somewhat too 

 low. The Kuroshio here keeps closely to the coast with velocities of 160-180 cm/sec 

 and extends seawards for 140 km. As is true for the Gulf Stream, there is a counter 

 current to observe towards the south-west on the right-hand side with maximum 

 velocities of up to 20 cm/sec. Here also a downstream increase in the water transport 

 can be noticed, but the counter current on its right-hand side with its higher velocities 

 compensates the outflow towards the east to a considerable extent. There is so far no 

 proof whether there are any seasonal changes in the amount of water transported 

 (see also, in this connection the works of Ichiva, 1953-54). 



The Kuroshio does not show such pronounced characteristic properties as to be 

 termed without more ado as a free jet current in the sense of the Rossby theory. It 

 lacks especially the jet-like outflow from a narrow sea strait; it is formed instead by the 

 gradual deflection of the stream lines out from the North Equatorial Current and only 

 at a later stage forces its way into the relatively narrow channel-like region between the 

 shelf and the submarine ridge of the Ryu-kyu Islands. By the further weakening due 

 to the separation of the Tsusima branch its quasi-jet character is entirely lost. 



The continuation of the Kuroshio out into the Pacific from about 35° N. onwards 

 (see p. 570), according to vertical sections (Uda, 1935), possesses the character of a 

 relatively narrow current which, however, like the Gulf Stream in the central parts of 

 the Atlantic, has a tendency to break up into single-current branches intermittently 

 separated by vortices and counter currents. The one branch turning north from the 

 Kuroshio meets the cold water masses of the Oyashio, and there in dynamic respect 

 similar conditions occur as are present when the Gulf Stream meets the Labrador 

 Current off the Newfoundland Banks. 



Table 153 finally presents a survey about mean water, heat and salt transports 

 according to Wiist for the Gulf Stream and the Kuroshio. About 22 times as much 

 water passes through the Kuroshio section and even about 33 times through the 

 Gulf Stream as is carried by the water transports of all the rivers and glaciers on the 

 earth (run-off from the continents on the average about 1-2 million m^sec). Even 

 more spectacular are the enormous amounts of salt carried through these cross- 

 sections, corresponding roughly to loads of 79,000 and 121,000 rail-road goods 

 wagons respectively, each of which takes 10 tons. The question thus arises, why the 

 climatic effect of the Kuroshio on the eastern Pacific and on the neighbouring continent 



