Measurement of the Kuroshio and its Associated Luzon Strait throughflow by Ocean Acoustic Tomography

The Luzon Strait is a key place in the East Asian climate change study. The climate condition of the South China Sea is significantly controlled by the Luzon Strait transport (LST) (Qu et al., 2004; Liu et al., 2008). Variability in the Kuroshio origin around the strait is mostly caused by the LST, and significantly affects the oceanic variability around Japan and Korea in the downstream. In spite of the importance of LST measurement, most of the previous observations are based on hydrography (Nitani, 1972; Shaw, 1991; Chen and Huang, 1996; Yaremchuk et al., 2009), and the direct measurement of current is still limited in the observational period and spatial coverage (Y. Yuan et al., 2008; Liang et al., 2008).