Diagnostic calculations of the Kuroshio current using the hydrographic data South of Japan

The major objective of the paper is to continue the study of the Kuroshio current “bimodality” South of Japan. The observational data were obtained in 40 oceanographic cruises by the FERHRI vessels during the period 1980-1990. Some of these periods were characterized by the on-shore (shelf), non-large meander state, whereas during the other periods, a typical off-shore, large-meander path was formed. The P-vector inverse as well as the conventional dynamic methods were used as the diagnostic approaches for the 3D velocity fields estimate for these data. The differences for the two methods were analyzed.