While modelling studies suggest that mesoscale eddies strengthen the subduction of mode waters, this eddy effect has never been observed in the field. Here we report results from a field campaign from March 2014 that captured the eddy effects on mode-water subduction south of the Kuroshio Extension east of Japan. The experiment deployed 17 Argo floats in an anticyclonic eddy (AC) with enhanced daily sampling. Analysis of over 3,000 hydrographic profiles following the AC reveals that potential vorticity and apparent oxygen utilization distributions are asymmetric outside the AC core, with enhanced subduction near the southeastern rim of the AC. There, the southward eddy flow advects newly ventilated mode water from the north into the main thermocline. Our results show that subduction by eddy lateral advection is comparable in magnitude to that by the mean flow—an effect that needs to be better represented in climate models.

A significant decadal variability of the North Pacific Eastern Subtropical Mode Water (NPESTMW), related to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, is identified from the gridded Argo and EN4 observational data sets. To investigate the decadal variability of the NPESTMW volume, the high‐resolution Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II simulation is used to diagnose the volume budget of the NPESTMW density layer in the NPESTMW formation region (20°–36°N, 160°–120°W) between 1992 and 2016. Results show that NPESTMW is formed through subduction of low potential vorticity (PV) water. This low‐PV water subduction is mainly determined by mixed layer depth change and lateral induction, which account for approximately 58% and 32%, respectively. The decadal NPESTMW volume anomaly is originated from the Pacific Decadal Oscillation‐induced decadal anomaly of air‐sea buoyancy flux. This decadal buoyancy flux anomaly drives the decadal anomaly of mixed layer depth change, then causes anomalous subduction, and leads to anomalous low‐PV water subduction. The decadal NPESTMW volume anomaly is finally generated by this anomalous low‐PV water subduction.

The pycnostad of the North Pacific subtropical mode water (STMW) often displays multiple vertical minima in the potential vorticity profile. Argo profile data from 2004 to 2015 are used to investigate interannual to decadal variations of the multicore structure. Climatologically, about 24% pycostads of STMW have multicore structure, and most of them distribute in the region west of 150°E. STMW cores are classified into three submodes—the cold, middle, and warm ones with potential temperatures of 16.0–17°C, 17–18°C, and 18–19.5°C, respectively. The Kuroshio Extension (KE) varies between stable and unstable states. The unstable KE with large meanders increases the subsurface stratification and shoals the winter mixed layer east of 150°E with warmer temperatures. There, the dominant STMW type varies from the cold single type in stable KE years (making up 72% of the profiles with STMW) to the middle single one (53%) in unstable years. The variation of the dominant STMW type in the region east of 150°E subsequently affects the multicore structure of STMW west of 150°E. In a broad region between 130°E and 180°E, profiles with STMW are fewer in unstable years but the proportion of multicore profiles increases among STMW profiles. This might be due to the split recirculation gyre with a chaotic KE.