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The East Sea (Japan Sea), a small marginal sea in the northwestern Pacific, is ventilated deeply down to the bottom and sensitive to changing surface conditions. Addressing the response of this marginal sea to the hydrological cycle and atmospheric forcing would be helpful for better understanding present and future environmental changes in oceans at the global and regional scales. Here, we present an analysis of observations revealing a slowdown of the long-term deepening in water boundaries associated with changes of water formation rate. Our results indicate that bottom (central) water formation has been enhanced (reduced) with more (less) oxygen supply to the bottom (central) layer since the 2000s. This paper presents a new projection that allows a three-layered deep structure, which retains bottom water, at least until 2040, contrasting previous results. This projection considers recent increase of slope convections mainly due to the salt supply via air-sea freshwater exchange and sea ice formation and decrease of open-ocean convections evidenced by reduced mixed layer depth in the northern East Sea, resulting in more bottom water and less central water formations. Such vigorous changes in water formation and ventilation provide certain implications on future climate changes.

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Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic composition of zooplankton, suspended particulate organic matter (SPOM), and sinking particles collected using sediment traps were measured for samples obtained from the southeastern Bering Sea middle and outer shelf during 1997-1999. The quantity of material collected by the middle shelf sediment trap was greater in both spring and late summer and fall than in early and mid-summer. The d 15 N of SPOM, sinking material and zooplankton showed greater inter-annual variability at the middle shelf site (M2) than at the outer shelf site (M3). Zooplankton and sinking organic matter collected by M2 sediment traps became more depleted in 15 N from 1997 through 1999, associated with a change from unusually warm to unusually cold conditions. Suspended and sinking organic matter and zooplankton collected from M3 decreased only slightly in d15 N from 1998 to 1999. SPOM, zooplankton, and sediment trap samples collected at M2 were usually enriched in d 15 N and d 13 C over those from M3. However, in 1999 sediment trap samples from the middle shelf were enriched in 13 C over M3 material, but the d 15 N of samples from the two sites was similar. The geographic pattern could be explained greater productivity over the middle shelf, associated with either isotopically heavy nitrogen being regenerated from sediments, or with utilization of a greater fraction of the available inorganic nitrogen pool during most years. r