N.
Its position in the winter is often associated with an
ice odden, a persistent eastward extension of the
East Greenland Ice Stream.
The upper layer baroclinic flow shows that about half of the
JMC is a wide meander in the EGC and about half continues
eastward to close the Greenland Gyre system on the south.
Beneath the halocline the meander dissipates and the flow
becomes more barotropic, with the barotropic flow steered
to the east by the Jan Mayen Fracture Zone. This has also
been called the Jan Mayen Polar Current.
See van Aken (1995) and
Bourke et al. (1992).
N,
and the Yamato Basin
(with depths around 2500 m) south of 40 N, the the
basins separated by
the Yamato Ridge. The area is 978,000 km2, the average depth
1750 m, and the greatest depth about 4050 m.
Prominent circulation features in the Japan Sea include the Tshushima Current, the Tsugaru Current, the Liman Current, the North Korea Current and the Mid-Japan Sea or Maritime Province Current. Water masses found there include Japan Sea Middle Water (or Intermediate Water) and Japan Sea Proper Water.
The Japan Sea is a meeting place for warm currents from the south and cold currents from the north, with the confluence being the Polar Front. See Tomczak and Godfrey (1994) and Zenkevitch (1963).
C as well as an oxygen
maximum of 8 ml/l near 200 m depth. The warmer layers
are advected in by the Kuroshio and the colder layers
formed by sinking at the Polar Front and on the shelf
to the north.
C) and
salinity (34.1) which result from its isolation from other
basins by shallow sills. It is formed via winter
convection facilitated by the salt imported by the
Tsushima Current, with
the instabilities in the Polar Front serving to transport
this salt into the northern formation regions. Some authors
differentiate Japan Sea Deep Water (200 - 2000 m) and
Japan Sea Bottom Water (2000 m - bottom), and occasionally
the entire water mass is referred to as Japan Sea Deep Water.
See Tomczak and Godfrey (1994).
E and 5 S, it has average depths
of around 40-50 m, and an area ranging from 367,000 to
433,000 km 
depending on where the boundaries are specified.
It is connected to the
Sulawesi Sea to the northeast
by the Makassar Strait, adjoins
the Flores Sea to the east,
connects to the South China Sea
to the northwest via the
Karimata Strait, and abuts the
Bali Sea to the south and
Kalimantan to the north.
It is sometimes grouped together with the shelf sector of
the South China Sea
as the SundaSea, and also variously
spelled as Jawa Sea.
The Java Sea was formed when two large river systems,
now forming shallow channels in the shallow sea floor,
were drowned out at the end of the last ice age. The
circulation and hydrography are determined by the annual
cycle of monsoon winds, with currents flowing westward
from June to August and eastward during the rest of the
year. During this latter period a tongue of high salinity
water from the South China Sea pushes salinity values of
32 as far east as 112 E.
See Tomczak and Godfrey (1994).
ergs; 1 calorie = 4.1868 joules.