New Circulation Features in the Okhotsk Sea from a Numerical Model

Using the eddy-permitting model, circulation in the Okhotsk Sea and in an adjacent area of the Pacific Ocean is retrospectively simulated from 1991 to 2000. It is shown that the Sea has four types of circulation, each one for its own season with a strengthening of all currents in winter and a weakening in summer. We estimate and analyze the values of the simulated monthly-averaged volume transport of the main currents: the coastal branch of the East Sakhalin Current, the over-slope branch of the East Sakhalin Current, the coastal branch of the North Okhotsk Current, the over-slope branch of the North Okhotsk current, the Middle Current and the West Kamchatka Current. In contrast to the conventional circulation schemes, the North Okhotsk Current is found to consist of two branches, one over a continental slope and another along the northern shelf. The simulation results on the double-branch structure of this current are found to be in a reasonable agreement with instrumental measurements, CTD observations, satellite data and other oceanography reanalysis.