Typhoon Effect on Kuroshio and Green Island Wakes: A Modelling Study

Green Island, located in the typhoon-active eastern Taiwan coastal water, is the potential Kuroshio power plant site. In this study, a high resolution (250–2250 m) shallow-water equations model is used to investigate the effect of typhoon on the hydro-dynamics of Kuroshio and Green Island wakes. Two typhoon–Kuroshio interactions—typhoon Soulik and Holland’s typhoon model—are studied. Simulation results of typhoon Soulik indicate salient characteristics of Kuroshio, and downstream island wakes seems less affected by the typhoon Soulik, because the shortest distance of typhoon Soulik is 250 km away from Green Island and wind speed near Green Island is small. Moreover, Kuroshio currents increase when flow is in the same direction as the counterclockwise rotation of typhoon, and vice versa. This finding is in favorable agreement with the TOROS (Taiwan Ocean Radar Observing System) observed data. Simulations of Kuroshio and Holland’s typhoon model successfully reproduces the downstream recirculation and vortex street. Numerical results reveal that the slow moving typhoon has a more significant impact on the Kuroshio and downstream Green Island wakes than the fast moving typhoon does. The rightward bias phenomenon is evident—Kuroshio currents increase (decrease) in the right (left) of the moving typhoon’s track, due to the counterclockwise rotation of typhoon.