An Air-Ocean Coupled Nowcast/Forecast System for the East Asian Marginal Seas

The South China Sea (SCS), Yellow/EaBt China Sea (YES), and Japan/East Sea (JES) are major east Asian marginal seas (EAMS). The complex topography includes the broad shallows of the Sunda Shelf in the south/southwest of SCSi the continental shelf of the Asian landmass in the north, extending from the Gulf of Tonkin to the YES; a deep, elliptical shaped SCS and JES basins, and numerous reef islands and underwater plateaus scattered throughout (Fig. 1a). The shelf that extends from the Gulf of Tonkin to the YES is consistently near 70 m deep, and averages 150 km in width.