We examined the appearance of cold water in the southwest region of the East Sea, based on the sea surface temperature (SST) at the east coast of Korea and buoy data in Donghae (37°31’N, 130°00’E, 80 km east away from Donghae port) and Pohang (36°21’N, 129°46’E, 35 km east away from Ganggu port) from June to August in 2013. Also, the serial oceanographic data of National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI) were used to see the oceanographic conditions for June and August in 2013. The SST anomaly at the east coast showed negative values in 3~6°C from 2 July. At Janggigab, the SST anomaly showed negative value amount to 10°C in 8 July. The negative values of SST anomaly continued to the middle of August at Janggigab. The wind speed was 6~11 m/s and the direction was south-southwestly in 1 July. The wind speed amounts to 6~16 m/s in 2 July. It means that the strong wind induced the upwelling effect by a day. The temperature was lower than normal at the depth in 20 m of the East Sea in June and August. The air pressure was 996~998 hPa in the beginning of July. It was the lowest air pressure during the studied period. The correlation was 0.3 between the SST anomaly and air pressure. It was suggested that the appearance of cold water in the East Sea was influenced by a stirring due to wind and low air pressure as well as coastal upwelling.

• 최용규(동해수산연구소) | Yong-kyu CHOI (East Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Gangneung 210-861, Korea)