Role of friction and orography in the Asian-African monsoonal system

Author(s):  
Giovanni Dalu ◽  
Marco Gaetani ◽  
Cyrille Flamant ◽  
Marina Baldi

<p>The West African monsoon (WAM) originates in the Gulf of Guinea when the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) makes its landfall; whilst, the south Asian monsoon (SAM) originates in the Indian ocean when the ITCZ crosses the equator. The monsoonal dynamics are here studied after landfall using Gill’s tropospheric model with an implanted Ekman frictional layer (EFL). Ekman pumping increases low level convergence, making the lower monsoonal cyclone deeper and more compact that the upper anticyclone, by transferring tropospheric vorticity into the EFL. In the upper troposphere, air particles spiral-out anticyclonically away from the monsoons, subsiding over the Tropical Atlantic, the Tropical Indian ocean, or transiting into the southern hemisphere across the equator. Whilst marine air particles spiral-in cyclonically towards the WAM or the SAM, the latter appears to be a preferred ending destination in the absence of orography. The Himalayas introduced as a barrier to the monsoonal winds, strengthen the tropospheric winds by tightening the isobars. The Somali mountains (SMs), introduced as a barrier to the Ekman winds, separates the WAM and the SAM catch basins; thus, the Atlantic air particles converge towards the WAM and the Indian ocean particles converge towards the SAM. The Indian Ghats (IGs), introduced as a semi-impermeable barrier to the Ekman winds, deflect the marine air particles originated in the western Indian ocean towards the south-eastern flank of the SAM. In short, an upper single anticyclone encircles both monsoons; the Himalayas strengthen the upper-level winds by increasing the pressure gradients; the SMs split the EFL cyclone, keeping the marine air particles to the west of SMs in the WAM basin and the particles to the east of SMs in the SAM basin; the IGs guides transmit the air particles, deflecting them towards Bangladesh.</p>

1876 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-154
Author(s):  
A. H. Schindler

The part of Belúchistán now under Persian rule is bounded upon the north by Seistán, upon the east by Panjgúr and Kej, upon the south by the Indian Ocean, and upon the west by Núrámshír, Rúdbár, and the Báshákerd mountains.This country enjoys a variety of climates; almost unbearable heat exists on the Mekrán coast, we find a temperate climate on the hill slopes and on the slightly raised plains as at Duzek and Bampúr, and a cool climate in the mountainous districts Serhad and Bazmán. The heat at Jálq is said to be so intense in summer that the gazelles lie down exhausted in the plains, and let themselves be taken by the people without any trouble.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (16) ◽  
pp. 11973-11990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alina Fiehn ◽  
Birgit Quack ◽  
Irene Stemmler ◽  
Franziska Ziska ◽  
Kirstin Krüger

Abstract. Oceanic very short-lived substances (VSLSs), such as bromoform (CHBr3), contribute to stratospheric halogen loading and, thus, to ozone depletion. However, the amount, timing, and region of bromine delivery to the stratosphere through one of the main entrance gates, the Indian summer monsoon circulation, are still uncertain. In this study, we created two bromoform emission inventories with monthly resolution for the tropical Indian Ocean and west Pacific based on new in situ bromoform measurements and novel ocean biogeochemistry modeling. The mass transport and atmospheric mixing ratios of bromoform were modeled for the year 2014 with the particle dispersion model FLEXPART driven by ERA-Interim reanalysis. We compare results between two emission scenarios: (1) monthly averaged and (2) annually averaged emissions. Both simulations reproduce the atmospheric distribution of bromoform from ship- and aircraft-based observations in the boundary layer and upper troposphere above the Indian Ocean reasonably well. Using monthly resolved emissions, the main oceanic source regions for the stratosphere include the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal in boreal summer and the tropical west Pacific Ocean in boreal winter. The main stratospheric injection in boreal summer occurs over the southern tip of India associated with the high local oceanic sources and strong convection of the summer monsoon. In boreal winter more bromoform is entrained over the west Pacific than over the Indian Ocean. The annually averaged stratospheric injection of bromoform is in the same range whether using monthly averaged or annually averaged emissions in our Lagrangian calculations. However, monthly averaged emissions result in the highest mixing ratios within the Asian monsoon anticyclone in boreal summer and above the central Indian Ocean in boreal winter, while annually averaged emissions display a maximum above the west Indian Ocean in boreal spring. In the Asian summer monsoon anticyclone bromoform atmospheric mixing ratios vary by up to 50 % between using monthly averaged and annually averaged oceanic emissions. Our results underline that the seasonal and regional stratospheric bromine injection from the tropical Indian Ocean and west Pacific critically depend on the seasonality and spatial distribution of the VSLS emissions.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 695-713 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Du ◽  
Yuhong Zhang

Abstract This study investigates sea surface salinity (SSS) variations in the tropical Indian Ocean (IO) using the Aquarius/Satelite de Aplicaciones Cientificas-D (SAC-D) and the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite data and the Argo observations during July 2010–July 2014. Compared to the Argo observations, the satellite datasets generally provide SSS maps with higher space–time resolution, particularly in the regions where Argo floats are sparse. Both Aquarius and SMOS well captured the SSS variations associated with the Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) mode. Significant SSS changes occurred in the central equatorial IO, along the Java–Sumatra coast, and south of the equatorial IO, due to ocean circulation variations. During the negative IOD events in 2010, 2013, and 2014, westerly wind anomalies strengthened along the equator, weakening coastal upwelling off Java and Sumatra and decreasing SSS. South of the equatorial IO, an anomalous cyclonic gyre changed the tropical circulation, which favored the eastward high-salinity tongue along the equator and the westward low-saline tongue in the south. An upwelling Rossby wave favored the increase of SSS farther to the south. During the positive IOD events in 2011 and 2012, the above-mentioned processes reversed, although the decrease of SSS was weaker in magnitude.


Itinerario ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Davies

This article explores the private trade networks of English East India Company merchants on the west coast of India during the first half of the eighteenth century. Existing studies of English private trade in the Indian Ocean have almost exclusively focused on India's eastern seaboard, the Coromandel Coast and the Bay of Bengal regions. This article argues that looking at private trade from the perspective of the western Indian Ocean provides a different picture of this important branch of European trade. It uses EIC records and merchants' private papers to argue against recent metropolitan-centred approaches to English private trade, instead emphasising the importance of more localised political and economic contexts, within the Indian Ocean world, for shaping the conduct and success of this commerce.


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.  


Author(s):  
Jing-Jia Luo

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science. Please check back later for the full article. The tropical Indian Ocean is unique in several aspects. Unlike the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, the Indian Ocean is bounded to the north by a large landmass, the Eurasian continent. The large thermal heat contrast between the ocean in the south and the land in the north induces the world’s strongest monsoon systems in South and East Asia, in response to the seasonal migration of solar radiation. The strong and seasonally reversing surface winds generate large seasonal variations in ocean currents and basin-wide meridional heat transport across the equator. In contrast to the tropical Pacific and the Atlantic, where easterly trade winds prevail throughout the year, westerly winds (albeit with a relatively weak magnitude) blow along the equatorial Indian Ocean, particularly during the boreal spring and autumn seasons, generating the semi-annual Yoshida-Wyrtki eastward equatorial ocean currents. As a consequence of the lack of equatorial upwelling, the tropical Indian Ocean occupies the largest portion of the warm water pool (with Sea Surface Temperature [SST] being greater than 28 °C) on Earth. The massive warm water provides a huge potential energy available for deep convections that significantly affect the weather-climate over the globe. It is therefore of vital importance to discover and understand climate variabilities in the Indian Ocean and to further develop a capability to correctly predict the seasonal departures of the warm waters and their global teleconnections. The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is the one of the recently discovered climate variables in the tropical Indian Ocean. During the development of the super El Niño in 1997, the climatological zonal SST gradient along the equator was much reduced (with strong cold SST anomalies in the east and warm anomalies in the west). The surface westerly winds switched to easterlies, and the ocean thermocline became shallow in the east and deep in the west. These features are reminiscent of what are observed during El Niño years in the Pacific, representing a typical coupled process between the ocean and the atmosphere. The IOD event in 1997 contributed significantly to floods in eastern Africa and severe droughts and bushfires in Indonesia and southeastern Australia. Since the discovery of the 1997 IOD event, extensive efforts have been made to lead the rapid progress in understanding the air-sea coupled climate variabilities in the Indian Ocean; and many approaches, including simple statistical models and comprehensive ocean-atmosphere coupled models, have been developed to simulate and predict the Indian Ocean climate. Essential to the discussion are the ocean-atmosphere dynamics underpinning the seasonal predictability of the IOD, critical factors that limit the IOD predictability (inter-comparison with El Niño-Southern Oscillation [ENSO]), observations and initialization approaches that provide realistic initial conditions for IOD predictions, models and approaches that have been developed to simulate and predict the IOD, the influence of global warming on the IOD predictability, impacts of IOD-ENSO interactions on the IOD predictability, and the current status and perspectives of the IOD prediction at seasonal to multi-annual timescales.


1900 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 763-768
Author(s):  
T. K. Krishṇa Menon

Malayalam is the language of the south-west of the Madras Presidency. It is the third most important language of the Presidency, the first and the second being Tamil and Telugu respectively. It is spoken in Malabar, Cochin, and Travancore. Out of a total of 5,932,207 inhabitants of these parts, 5,409,350 persons are those who speak Malayalam. These countries, taken as a whole, are bounded on the north, by South Canara, on the east by the far-famed Malaya range of mountains, on the south by the Indian Ocean, and on the west by the Arabian Sea.


Zootaxa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4543 (3) ◽  
pp. 375
Author(s):  
VALENTIN DE MAZANCOURT ◽  
MAGALIE CASTELIN ◽  
CLEMENTINE RENNEVILLE ◽  
MUSA C. MLAMBO ◽  
GERARD MARQUET ◽  
...  

Numerous specimens of a freshwater shrimp with small eggs belonging to the Caridina nilotica complex collected in the South Western Indian Ocean were studied and compared with recent and old collection specimens genetically (16S mitochondrial analysis for recent and type specimens) and morphologically. The results revealed that, in the Indian Ocean, what has been identified by several authors under various species names of the complex C. nilotica, was in fact C. natalensis De Man, 1908. This valid species is re-described and compared with closely related species, often confused with it in this area: C. brachydactyla De Man, 1908, C. brevidactyla Roux, 1920, C. gracilipes De Man, 1892 and C. longirostris H. Milne Edwards, 1837. 


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 2564-2583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Cowan ◽  
Wenju Cai ◽  
Benjamin Ng ◽  
Matthew England

Abstract The tropical Indian Ocean has experienced a faster warming rate in the west than in the east over the twentieth century. The warming pattern resembles a positive Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) that is well captured by climate models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), forced with the two main anthropogenic forcings, long-lived greenhouse gases (GHGs), and aerosols. However, much less is known about how GHGs and aerosols influence the IOD asymmetry, including the negative sea surface temperature (SST) skewness in the east IOD pole (IODE). Here, it is shown that the IODE SST negative skewness is more enhanced by aerosols than by GHGs using single-factor forcing experiments from 10 CMIP5 models. Aerosols induce a greater mean zonal thermocline gradient along the tropical Indian Ocean than that forced by GHGs, whereby the thermocline is deeper in the east relative to the west. This generates strong asymmetry in the SST response to thermocline anomalies between warm and cool IODE phases in the aerosol-only experiments, enhancing the negative IODE SST skewness. Other feedback processes involving zonal wind, precipitation, and evaporation cannot solely explain the enhanced SST skewness by aerosols. An interexperiment comparison in one model with strong skewness confirms that the mean zonal thermocline gradient across the Indian Ocean determines the magnitude of the SST–thermocline asymmetry, which in turn controls the SST skewness strength. The findings suggest that as aerosol emissions decline and GHGs increase, this will likely contribute to a future weakening of the IODE SST skewness.


2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (18) ◽  
pp. 3726-3738 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Jochum ◽  
Raghu Murtugudde

Abstract A 40-yr integration of an eddy-resolving numerical model of the tropical Indian Ocean is analyzed to quantify the interannual variability that is caused by the internal variability of ocean dynamics. It is found that along the equator in the western Indian Ocean internal variability contributes significantly to the observed interannual variability. This suggests that in this location the predictability of SST is limited to the persistence time of SST anomalies, which is approximately 100 days. Furthermore, a comparison with other sources of variability suggests that internal variability may play an important role in modifying the Indian monsoon or preconditioning the Indian Ocean dipole/zonal mode.


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