Background currents in the sea of Japan (a barotropic model)

A concept of a background current (BC) is introduced for a barotropic model of a limited basin which is characterized by a constant value of the potential vorticity, minimizing the kinetic energy of the system. The derivation of the BC is reduced to the solution of the Dirichlet problem for the integral stream function if the geometrical form of the basin, bottom topography, and water transport through the lateral boundaries are defined. The results of a numerical realization for the Sea of Japan are applied for the interpretation of the characteristic peculiarities of the mean surface circulation.