The 1994 positive Indian Ocean Dipole event as investigated by the transfer routes of oceanic wave energy

Abstract The present study investigates the interannual variability of the tropical Indian Ocean (IO) based on the transfer routes of wave energy in a set of 61-year hindcast experiments using a linear ocean model. To understand the basic feature of the IO Dipole mode, this paper focuses on the 1994 pure positive event. Two sets of westward transfer episodes in the energy flux associated with Rossby waves (RWs) are identified along the equator during 1994. One set represents the same phase speed as the linear theory of equatorial RWs, while the other set is slightly slower than the theoretical phase speed. The first set originates from the reflection of equatorial Kelvin waves at the eastern boundary of the IO. On the other hand, the second set is found to be associated with off-equatorial RWs generated by southeasterly winds in the southeastern IO, which may account for the appearance of the slower group velocity. A combined empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis of energy-flux streamfunction and potential reveals the intense westward signals of energy flux are attributed to off-equatorial RWs associated with predominant wind input in the southeastern IO corresponding to the positive IO Dipole event.

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zimeng Li ◽  
Hidenori Aiki ◽  
Motoki Nagura ◽  
Tomomichi Ogata

AbstractA recently developed energy flux diagnosis scheme, which incorporates a smooth connection between the tropical and subtropical zones, is used in the present study to investigate vertically propagating waves in the tropical Indian Ocean (IO) based on the result of a linear, continuously stratified ocean model driven by climatological wind forcing. This extended diagnosis reveals deep-reaching eastward energy fluxes at the equator which develop four times per year and are associated with equatorial Kelvin waves (KWs) generated by semiannual winds. The authors find that the downward transfer of wave energy is particularly deep in the southern Bay of Bengal (SBoB). This downward flux is attributed to off-equatorial Rossby waves and appears four times per year, maximizing its amplitude during November–December. Southwesterly winds in the Arabian Sea intensify eastward energy flux of KWs at mid-depth, which maximizes in amplitude in August. This is contrastive to KW energy flux at the surface which peaks in May. These mid-depth equatorial KW packets subsequently arrive at the eastern boundary of the IO and are diffracted poleward to produce downward energy flux in November and December detected in the SBoB.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Shi ◽  
Menghua Wang

AbstractThe 2019 positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) event in the boreal autumn was the most serious IOD event of the century with reports of significant sea surface temperature (SST) changes in the east and west equatorial Indian Ocean. Observations of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) between 2012 and 2020 are used to study the significant biological dipole response that occurred in the equatorial Indian Ocean following the 2019 positive IOD event. For the first time, we propose, identify, characterize, and quantify the biological IOD. The 2019 positive IOD event led to anomalous biological activity in both the east IOD zone and west IOD zone. The average chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration reached over ~ 0.5 mg m−3 in 2019 in comparison to the climatology Chl-a of ~ 0.3 mg m−3 in the east IOD zone. In the west IOD zone, the biological activity was significantly depressed. The depressed Chl-a lasted until May 2020. The anomalous ocean biological activity in the east IOD zone was attributed to the advection of the higher-nutrient surface water due to enhanced upwelling. On the other hand, the dampened ocean biological activity in the west IOD zone was attributed to the stronger convergence of the surface waters than that in a normal year.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Lei Zhang ◽  
Weiqing Han ◽  
Zeng-Zhen Hu

AbstractAn unprecedented extreme positive Indian Ocean Dipole event (pIOD) occurred in 2019, which has caused widespread disastrous impacts on countries bordering the Indian Ocean, including the East African floods and vast bushfires in Australia. Here we investigate the causes for the 2019 pIOD by analyzing multiple observational datasets and performing numerical model experiments. We find that the 2019 pIOD is triggered in May by easterly wind bursts over the tropical Indian Ocean associated with the dry phase of the boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation, and sustained by the local atmosphere-ocean interaction thereafter. During September-November, warm sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) in the central-western tropical Pacific further enhance the Indian Ocean’s easterly winds, bringing the pIOD to an extreme magnitude. The central-western tropical Pacific warm SSTA is strengthened by two consecutive Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) events that originate from the tropical Indian Ocean. Our results highlight the important roles of cross-basin and cross-timescale interactions in generating extreme IOD events. The lack of accurate representation of these interactions may be the root for a short lead time in predicting this extreme pIOD with a state-of-the-art climate forecast model.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liwei Huo ◽  
Zhaoyong Guan ◽  
Dachao Jin ◽  
Xi Liu ◽  
Xudong Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract Eastern China has a large population with rapid development of the economy, where is the important crop producing region. In this region, the spatial and temporal distribution of autumn rainfall in Eastern China is uneven, which has important societal impact. Using the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis and other observational datasets, it is found that the spatial distribution of the first EOF mode of autumn rainfall anomalies in eastern China is consistent across the region, with significant interannual variabilities. Pronounced interdecadal variations are presented in the relationship between autumn rainfall anomalies in eastern China and sea-surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) over the southeastern tropical Indian Ocean (SETIO). The interdecadal changes have been analyzed by considering two epochs: one during 1979-2004 and the other during 2005-2019. It shows weak and insignificant correlations between the autumn rainfall anomalies in eastern China and SSTA over SETIO during the first epoch. On the other hand, they are remarkable and positively correlated with each other during the second epoch. The inter-decadal changes of the above relationship are related to the warming of SST over SETIO during the second epoch. It causes stronger low-level convergence and ascending motion over SETIO, with the co-occurrence of enhanced western Pacific subtropical high and anomalous abundant moisture over eastern China carried by a low-level southerly anomaly originating from the South China Sea. Simultaneously, the local Hadley circulation over eastern China becomes weak, corresponding to the anomalous ascending motion. The collaboration of anomalous water vapour transport and ascending motion strengthens the connection between the SETIO SSTA and the autumn precipitation anomalies in eastern China, and vice versa. In the boreal autumn of 2019, entire eastern China suffered extreme drought. It suggests that this drought event in eastern China is strongly affected by the negative SSTA over SETIO, which is consistent with the statistical results.


2009 ◽  
Vol 66 (7) ◽  
pp. 1455-1466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliet C. Hermes ◽  
Chris J. C. Reason

Abstract Hermes, J. C., and Reason, C. J. C. 2009. The sensitivity of the Seychelles–Chagos thermocline ridge to large-scale wind anomalies. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 1455–1466. The Seychelles–Chagos thermocline ridge (SCTR) in the southwest tropical Indian Ocean is important for regional climate, the Madden–Julian Oscillation, as well as upper-ocean nutrients and related phytoplankton and zooplankton densities. Subsurface variability in this region has been proved to influence the overlying sea surface temperatures, which in turn can influence eastern African rainfall. There is evidence that austral summers with a deeper (shallower) SCTR tend to have more (less) tropical cyclone (TC) days in the Southwest Indian Ocean. The importance of this relationship was underlined during the 2006/2007 austral summer, when areas of Madagascar and central Mozambique experienced devastating floods, because of ten named tropical storms, including several intense TCs, effecting on these areas. At the same time, the SCTR during this season was anomalously deep, partly because of a downwelling Rossby wave that propagated across the South Indian Ocean during the previous austral winter/spring. In this paper, a regional ocean model is used to investigate the effect of remote forcing on this region and to study the sensitivity of the SCTR to changes in the large-scale winds over the South Indian Ocean, with a particular focus on the events of the 2006/2007 austral summer.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Zhang ◽  
Yan Du

AbstractThe tropical Indian Ocean (TIO) basin-wide warming occurred in 2020, following an extreme positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) event instead of an El Niño event, which is the first record since the 1960s. The extreme 2019 IOD induced the oceanic downwelling Rossby waves and thermocline warming in the southwest TIO, leading to sea surface warming via thermocline-SST feedback during late 2019 to early 2020. The southwest TIO warming triggered equatorially antisymmetric SST, precipitation, and surface wind patterns from spring to early summer. Subsequently, the cross-equatorial “C-shaped” wind anomaly, with northeasterly–northwesterly wind anomaly north–south of the equator, led to basin-wide warming through wind-evaporation-SST feedback in summer. This study reveals the important role of air–sea coupling processes associated with the independent and extreme IOD in the TIO basin-warming mode, which allows us to rethink the dynamic connections between the Indo-Pacific climate modes.


MAUSAM ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 395-398
Author(s):  
M.S. SINGH ◽  
B. Lakshmanaswamy

Evolution and characteristic features of double trough systems in the tropical Indian Ocean have been studied with the help of Climatological Atlas (Part I andIl) ~f the Tropical Indian Oc.ean (Hastenrath and Lamb 1979). It is confirmed that there are two troughs (Northern Hemisphere EquatorIal Trough and Southern Hemisphere Equatorial Trough) in this region (including south Asian landmass) all the year round, one in northern hemisphere and the other in southern. Both are migratory in nature and, perhaps, thermal in origin.  In the convergent zones of the two troughs, there is extensive cloudiness. The migration of these trough systems during their respective summer seasons appear to be related to the extensive heating of the south Asian/ African land masses surrounding the Indian Ocean in north and west.  


2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Putri Adia Utari ◽  
Mokhamad Yusup Nur Khakim ◽  
Dedi Setiabudidaya ◽  
Iskhaq Iskandar

Evolution of typical positive Indian Ocean Dipole (pIOD) event was dominated by a significant sea-surface temperature (SST) cooling in the south-eastern tropical Indian Ocean. Interestingly, during the evolution of 2015 pIOD event, the SST in the south-eastern tropical Indian Ocean did not reveal significant cooling, instead anomalous strong SST warming took place in the western tropical Indian Ocean off the East African coast. This anomalous SST warming was associated with a weakening of the Asian summer monsoon. Furthermore, analysis on the mixed layer heat budget demonstrated that the evolution of the 2015 pIOD event could be attributed mainly to the air-sea heat flux. By decomposing the air-sea heat flux, it is found that reduced latent heat loss plays an important role on the SST warming in the western pole and keeping SST warm in the eastern pole. We note that a residual term also may play a role during the initial development of the event. In contrast to the SST pattern, the subsurface temperature revealed a clear positive dipole pattern. Shallow (deep) 20°C isothermal layer in the eastern (western) equatorial Indian Ocean was observed during boreal summer. This robust subsurface dipole pattern indicated that the subsurface ocean response was largely wind driven through the equatorial wave dynamics as previously suggested.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Du ◽  
Yuhong Zhang ◽  
Lian-Yi Zhang ◽  
Tomoki Tozuka ◽  
Wenju Cai

<p>The 2019 positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) was the strongest event since the 1960s which developed independently without coinciding El Niño. The dynamics is not fully understood. Here we show that in March-May, westward propagating oceanic Rossby waves, a remnant consequence of the weak 2018 Pacific warm condition, led to anomalous sea surface temperature warming in the southwest tropical Indian Ocean (TIO), inducing deep convection and anomalous easterly winds along the equator, which triggered the initial cooling in the east. In June-August, the easterly wind anomalies continued to evolve through ocean-atmosphere coupling involving Bjerknes feedback and equatorial nonlinear ocean advection, until its maturity in September-November. This study clarifies the contribution of oceanic Rossby waves in the south TIO in different dynamic settings and reveals a new triggering mechanism for extreme IOD events that will help to understand IOD diversity.</p>


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