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Ocean front is transition zone between two water mass with different hydrological features. Ocean front is an important mesoscale phenomenon, which has important significances in various fields, such as fishery, environment protection and marine military defense. Thus, ocean front becomes one of the key points in the physical oceanography and also in the inter-disciplinary studies. In Chinese marginal seas, ocean front is very importrant because of complex situation of water mass, circulation and eddies. In recent years, researchers have studied the distribution characteristics and the dynamic mechanism of fronts in Chinese marginal seas based on in-situ hydrographic data, remote sensing satellite data, theoretical analysis and numerical model. In this paper, we review the progress of fronts in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and the northern part of South China Sea. In our country, the research on frontal forecasting is still in the beginning stage, but forecast of ocean front is strongly demanded in China. Progress about forecasting of Kuroshio front, Gulf Stream front, frontal eddies in Gulf of Mexico and Iceland-Faeroe front is introduced in this paper. In addition, some thoughts and prospects about developing frontal forecast system in Chinese marginal seas are presented.
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