Overview of KORDI's physical and biological research activities in the East/Japan sea

The East/Japan Sea is a semi-enclosed marginal sea which is divided into th ree major basins deeper than 2000 m. It is often called a. miniature ocean since many of the physical processes and phenomena that are found in the op en ocean also occur in the East Sea This paper provides an overview of the physical and biological oceanographic research conducted in the East Sea by the Korea Ocean. Research and Development Institute (KORDI). It includes a brief review of past research activities with major findings, an introduct ion of on-going research with some preliminary results, and future plans. P hysical oceanographic research has evolved from previous limited-area, qual itative, and upper layer studies, and recently it has focused on: 1) explor ing basin scale variability of the sub-surface circulation by measuring cur rents from the near surface to the bottom and from the south to the north, 2) making highly resolved, three-dimensional measurements of meso-scale fea tures using the towed, undulating SeaSoar platform, and 3) developing a thr ee-dimensional circulation model. Although most biological oceanographic re search in the southwestern region of the East Sea has been limited in exten t and scope, some biological phenomena sent be interpreted in the light of climatic changes.