scholarly journals SENSITIVITY OF UPPER OCEAN DYNAMICS IN HIGH-RESOLUTION TROPICAL INDIAN OCEAN MODEL TO DIFFERENT FLUX PARAMETERIZATION: CASE STUDY FOR THE BAY OF BENGAL (BOB)

Author(s):  
S. K. Mallick ◽  
N. Agarwal ◽  
R. Sharma ◽  
K. V. S. R. Prasad

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Simulation experiments using a high-resolution ocean general circulation model (OGCM) of the tropical Indian Ocean (TIO) were carried out to assess the model’s sensitivity to different flux parameterization. The flux formulation proposed by Kara et al. (2000) is used in the control run (CR). One more experiment differing in the bulk fluxes formulation for the computation of momentum, freshwater and heat is carried out. In the first experiment (CR), actual wind is used for the computation of the exchange coefficient in air-sea bulk flux formulation. In the second experiment (E1), model surface current is used in the wind stress formulation to compute the turbulent air-sea fluxes for TIO region. The formulation used in E1 is the same as it is used in CR, instead of actual wind, relative wind component is used in flux formulas. Both experiments are carried out for the period 2014&amp;ndash;2016. The OGCM is forced using the daily fields of winds, radiation and freshwater fluxes obtained from ERA-Interim Reanalysis. In this study, we examine and quantify the performance of the above-mentioned experiments with respect to observations from ARGO, satellite-based sea surface temperature (SST) and sea surface salinity (SSS) for the year 2015. We observe that the upper ocean dynamics is significantly modulated by different flux algorithms. The errors in simulated SST is reduced by &amp;sim;8% to 10% in E1 compared to CR, respectively. The temperature errors in the top 20<span class="thinspace"></span>m depth are reduced by 8% in E1. It is found that this flux formulation using relative winds is effective in accurately simulating the upper ocean dynamics in strong wind regimes of the Bay of Bengal.</p>

2020 ◽  
Vol 177 (8) ◽  
pp. 4025-4044 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subrat Kumar Mallick ◽  
Neeraj Agarwal ◽  
Rashmi Sharma ◽  
K. V. S. R. Prasad ◽  
S. S. V. S. Ramakrishna

2016 ◽  
Vol 97 (10) ◽  
pp. 1859-1884 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hemantha W. Wijesekera ◽  
Emily Shroyer ◽  
Amit Tandon ◽  
M. Ravichandran ◽  
Debasis Sengupta ◽  
...  

Abstract Air–Sea Interactions in the Northern Indian Ocean (ASIRI) is an international research effort (2013–17) aimed at understanding and quantifying coupled atmosphere–ocean dynamics of the Bay of Bengal (BoB) with relevance to Indian Ocean monsoons. Working collaboratively, more than 20 research institutions are acquiring field observations coupled with operational and high-resolution models to address scientific issues that have stymied the monsoon predictability. ASIRI combines new and mature observational technologies to resolve submesoscale to regional-scale currents and hydrophysical fields. These data reveal BoB’s sharp frontal features, submesoscale variability, low-salinity lenses and filaments, and shallow mixed layers, with relatively weak turbulent mixing. Observed physical features include energetic high-frequency internal waves in the southern BoB, energetic mesoscale and submesoscale features including an intrathermocline eddy in the central BoB, and a high-resolution view of the exchange along the periphery of Sri Lanka, which includes the 100-km-wide East India Coastal Current (EICC) carrying low-salinity water out of the BoB and an adjacent, broad northward flow (∼300 km wide) that carries high-salinity water into BoB during the northeast monsoon. Atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) observations during the decaying phase of the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) permit the study of multiscale atmospheric processes associated with non-MJO phenomena and their impacts on the marine boundary layer. Underway analyses that integrate observations and numerical simulations shed light on how air–sea interactions control the ABL and upper-ocean processes.


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
J. Q. Feng

Abstract. Sea surface height derived from the multiple ocean satellite altimeter missions (TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1, ERS, Envisat et al.) and sea surface temperature from National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) over 1993–2008 are analyzed to investigate the coherent patterns between the interannual variability of the sea surface and subsurface in the Tropical Indian Ocean, by jointly adopting Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) and Extended Associate Pattern Analysis (EAPA) methods. Results show that there are two dominant coherent modes with the nearly same main period of about 3–5 yr, accounting for 86 % of the total covariance in all, but 90° phase difference between them. The primary pattern is characterized by a east-west dipole mode associated with the mature phase of ENSO, and the second presents a sandwich mode having one sign anomalies along Sumatra-Java coast and northeast of Madagascar, whilst an opposite sign between the two regions. The robust correlations of the sea surface height anomaly (SSHA) with sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) in the leading modes indicate a strong interaction between them, though the highest correlation coefficient appears with a time lag. And there may be some physical significance with respect to ocean dynamics implied in SSHA variability. Analyzing results show that the features of oceanic waves with basin scale, of which the Rossby wave is prominent, are apparent in the dominant modes. It is further demonstrated from the EAPA that the equatorial eastward Kelvin wave and off-equatorial westward Rossby wave as well as their reflection in the east and west boundary, respectively, are important dynamic mechanisms in the evolution of the two leading coherent patterns. Results of the present study suggest that the upper ocean thermal variations on the timescale of interannual coherent with the ocean dynamics in spatial structure and temporal evolution are mainly attributed to the ocean waves.


2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (17) ◽  
pp. 3428-3449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert S. Fischer ◽  
Pascal Terray ◽  
Eric Guilyardi ◽  
Silvio Gualdi ◽  
Pascale Delecluse

Abstract The question of whether and how tropical Indian Ocean dipole or zonal mode (IOZM) interannual variability is independent of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability in the Pacific is addressed in a comparison of twin 200-yr runs of a coupled climate model. The first is a reference simulation, and the second has ENSO-scale variability suppressed with a constraint on the tropical Pacific wind stress. The IOZM can exist in the model without ENSO, and the composite evolution of the main anomalies in the Indian Ocean in the two simulations is virtually identical. Its growth depends on a positive feedback between anomalous equatorial easterly winds, upwelling equatorial and coastal Kelvin waves reducing the thermocline depth and sea surface temperature off the coast of Sumatra, and the atmospheric dynamical response to the subsequently reduced convection. Two IOZM triggers in the boreal spring are found. The first is an anomalous Hadley circulation over the eastern tropical Indian Ocean and Maritime Continent, with an early northward penetration of the Southern Hemisphere southeasterly trades. This situation grows out of cooler sea surface temperatures in the southeastern tropical Indian Ocean left behind by a reinforcement of the late austral summer winds. The second trigger is a consequence of a zonal shift in the center of convection associated with a developing El Niño, a Walker cell anomaly. The first trigger is the only one present in the constrained simulation and is similar to the evolution of anomalies in 1994, when the IOZM occurred in the absence of a Pacific El Niño state. The presence of these two triggers—the first independent of ENSO and the second phase locking the IOZM to El Niño—allows an understanding of both the existence of IOZM events when Pacific conditions are neutral and the significant correlation between the IOZM and El Niño.


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 2885-2914 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Soloviev ◽  
C. Maingot ◽  
S. Matt ◽  
R. E. Dodge ◽  
S. Lehner ◽  
...  

Abstract. This work is aimed at identifying the origin of fine-scale features on the sea surface in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery with the help of in-situ measurements as well as numerical models (presented in a companion paper). We are interested in natural and artificial features starting from the horizontal scale of the upper ocean mixed layer, around 30–50 m. These features are often associated with three-dimensional upper ocean dynamics. We have conducted a number of studies involving in-situ observations in the Straits of Florida during SAR satellite overpass. The data include examples of sharp frontal interfaces, wakes of surface ships, internal wave signatures, as well as slicks of artificial and natural origin. Atmospheric processes, such as squall lines and rain cells, produced prominent signatures on the sea surface. This data has allowed us to test an approach for distinguishing between natural and artificial features and atmospheric influences in SAR images that is based on a co-polarized phase difference filter.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjam van der Mheen ◽  
Erik van Sebille ◽  
Charitha Pattiaratchi

Abstract. A large percentage of global ocean plastic waste enters the northern hemisphere Indian Ocean (NIO). Despite this, it is unclear what happens to buoyant plastics in the NIO. Because the subtropics in the NIO is blocked by landmass, there is no subtropical gyre and no associated subtropical garbage patch in this region. We therefore hypothesise that plastics "beach" and end up on coastlines along the Indian Ocean rim. In this paper, we determine the influence of beaching plastics by applying different beaching conditions to Lagrangian particle tracking simulation results. Our results show that a large amount of plastic likely ends up on coastlines in the NIO, while some crosses the equator into the southern hemisphere Indian Ocean (SIO). In the NIO, the transport of plastics is dominated by seasonally reversing monsoonal currents, which transport plastics back and forth between the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. All buoyant plastic material in this region beaches within a few years in our simulations. Countries bordering the Bay of Bengal are particularly heavily affected by plastics beaching on coastlines. This is a result of both the large sources of plastic waste in the region, as well as ocean dynamics which concentrate plastics in the Bay of Bengal. During the intermonsoon period following the southwest monsoon season (September, October, November), plastics can cross the equator on the eastern side of the NIO basin into the SIO. Plastics that escape from the NIO into the SIO beach on eastern African coastlines and islands in the SIO or enter the subtropical SIO garbage patch.


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