Fine-scale upper ocean variability in the 15 ~ 150 km wavelength range within the Kuroshio Extension region is investigated using wide-swath sea surface height (SSH) data from the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission spanning from August 2023 to December 2024. The regional SSH wavenumber spectrum in this fine-scale range follows largely the k^(-11/3) power law, indicative of control by surface quasi-geostrophicdynamics. The fine-scale eddy kinetic energy (EKE) and strain signals exhibit a pronounced asymmetry with respect to the polarity of the large-mesoscale vorticity field, attributable to ageostrophic secondarycirculations and the departure from balanced dynamics. Seasonally, the fine-scale EKE is enhanced from January to April, coinciding with winter mixed layer instability, and its spatial influence extends beyond the Kuroshio Extension jet into the broad interior ocean. We identify atransition scale between forward and inverse energy cascades at approximately 50 km-significantly smaller than the ~150 km scale estimated from gridded nadir altimetry data. Temporally, the amplitude of the inverse cascade is modulated by the total regional EKE level, whereas the amplitude of the forward cascade is linked to the intensity of regions where A-S<0, with A denoting absolute vorticity and S the strain rate-a proxy for the breakdown of balanced dynamics.
 

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