scholarly journals Beaching patterns of plastic debris along the Indian Ocean rim

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.

Ocean Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 1317-1336
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 are blocked by landmass, there is no subtropical gyre and no associated subtropical garbage patch in this region. We therefore hypothesize 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 and the ocean dynamics that 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.


MAUSAM ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-404
Author(s):  
ARTI BANDGAR ◽  
PRABHU PALLAVI ◽  
SREEJITH O P ◽  
PAI D S

This paper studies the summer monsoon 2017 and examines the number of parameters which we believe were important in understanding why monsoon failed in second half over India. The list of parameters includes monthly mean or anomalies of the following fields : sea surface temperature, outgoing longwave radiation, stream function of lower and upper atmosphere, velocity potential and monthly and seasonal precipitation. ENSO conditions were mainly neutral with warm ENSO neutral conditions observed in the first half and cool ENSO neutral conditions observed in the second half. As a result, influence on the monsoon from the large scale SST forcing from Pacific Ocean was nearly absent during the season. However, Positive IOD conditions over the Indian Ocean during the monsoon season, particularly during first half of the monsoon were prominent. The transition of warmer than normal SSTs (June and July) to normal SSTs (August) and then becoming cooler than normal SSTs (September) in the equatorial Indian Ocean had a significant influence which lead monsoon to fail in second half.   


MAUSAM ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 527-540
Author(s):  
M. RAJEEVAN ◽  
R. K. PRASAD ◽  
U. S. DE

Surface cloud data based on synoptic observations made by Voluntary Observing Ships (VOS) during the period 1951-98 were used to prepare the seasonal and annual cloud climatology of the Indian Ocean. The analysis has been carried out by separating the long-term trends, decadal and inter-annual components from the monthly cloud anomaly time series at each 5° × 5° grids.   Maximum zone of total and low cloud cover shifts from equator to northern parts of India during the monsoon season. During the monsoon season (June-September), maximum total cloud cover exceeding 70% and low cloud cover exceeding 50% are observed over north Bay of Bengal. Maximum standard deviation of total and low cloud cover is observed near the equator and in the southern hemisphere. Both total and low cloud cover over Arabian Sea and the equatorial Indian Ocean are observed to decrease during the ENSO events. However, cloud cover over Bay of Bengal is not modulated by the ENSO events. On inter-decadal scale, low cloud cover shifted from a "low regime" to a "high regime" after 1980 which may be associated with the corresponding inter-decadal changes of sea surface temperatures over north Indian Ocean observed during the late 1970s.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (17) ◽  
pp. 7087-7109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandra Sanchez-Franks ◽  
Elizabeth C. Kent ◽  
Adrian J. Matthews ◽  
Benjamin G. M. Webber ◽  
Simon C. Peatman ◽  
...  

In the Bay of Bengal (BoB), surface heat fluxes play a key role in monsoon dynamics and prediction. The accurate representation of large-scale surface fluxes is dependent on the quality of gridded reanalysis products. Meteorological and surface flux variables from five reanalysis products are compared and evaluated against in situ data from the Research Moored Array for African–Asian–Australian Monsoon Analysis and Prediction (RAMA) in the BoB. The reanalysis products: ERA-Interim (ERA-I), TropFlux, MERRA-2, JRA-55, and CFSR are assessed for their characterization of air–sea fluxes during the southwest monsoon season [June–September (JJAS)]. ERA-I captured radiative fluxes best while TropFlux captured turbulent and net heat fluxes Qnet best, and both products outperformed JRA-55, MERRA-2, and CFSR, showing highest correlations and smallest biases when compared to the in situ data. In all five products, the largest errors were in shortwave radiation QSW and latent heat flux QLH, with nonnegligible biases up to approximately 75 W m−2. The QSW and QLH are the largest drivers of the observed Qnet variability, thus highlighting the importance of the results from the buoy comparison. There are also spatially coherent differences in the mean basinwide fields of surface flux variables from the reanalysis products, indicating that the biases at the buoy position are not localized. Biases of this magnitude have severe implications on reanalysis products’ ability to capture the variability of monsoon processes. Hence, the representation of intraseasonal variability was investigated through the boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation, and we found that TropFlux and ERA-I perform best at capturing intraseasonal climate variability during the southwest monsoon season.


2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 2011-2030 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. K. Nair ◽  
K. Parameswaran ◽  
K. Rajeev

Abstract. Aerosol distribution over the oceanic regions around the Indian subcontinent and its seasonal and interannual variabilities are studied using the aerosol optical depth (AOD) derived from NOAA-14 and NOAA-16 AVHRR data for the period of November 1995–December 2003. The air-mass types over this region during the Asian summer monsoon season (June–September) are significantly different from those during the Asian dry season (November–April). Hence, the aerosol loading and its properties over these oceanic regions are also distinctly different in these two periods. During the Asian dry season, the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal are dominated by the transport of aerosols from Northern Hemispheric landmasses, mainly the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and Arabia. This aerosol transport is rather weak in the early part of the dry season (November–January) compared to that in the later period (February–April). Large-scale transport of mineral dust from Arabia and the production of sea-salt aerosols, due to high surface wind speeds, contribute to the high aerosol loading over the Arabian Sea region during the summer monsoon season. As a result, the monthly mean AOD over the Arabian Sea shows a clear annual cycle with the highest values occurring in July. The AOD over the Bay of Bengal and the Southern Hemisphere Indian Ocean also displays an annual cycle with maxima during March and October, respectively. The amplitude of the annual variation is the largest in coastal Arabia and the least in the Southern Hemisphere Indian Ocean. The interannual variability in AOD is the largest over the Southeast Arabian Sea (seasonal mean AOD varies from 0.19 to 0.42) and the northern Bay of Bengal (seasonal mean AOD varies from 0.24 to 0.39) during the February–April period and is the least over the Southern Hemisphere Indian Ocean. This study also investigates the altitude regions and pathways of dominant aerosol transport by combining the AOD distribution with the atmospheric circulation. Keywords. Atmospheric composition and structure (Aerosols and particles) – Meteorology and atmospheric dynamics (Climatology) – Oceanography: physical (Ocean fog and aerosols)


MAUSAM ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-276
Author(s):  
H. N. SRIVASTAVA ◽  
K. C. SINHARAY ◽  
R. K. MUKHOPADHYAY

The study deals with the spatial and temporal variations of intra-seasonal oscillations in radio refractive index during southwest monsoon season over India and islands over Indian seas. Average daily radio refractive index data from 1 June to 30 September and that of the individual years for the period 1969-1986 were subjected to harmonic analysis to investigate the contributions of various periodicities in monsoon radio refractive index. The inter-annual variability of various intra-seasonal oscillations have been studied for each 5° latitudinal strip from 50 oN to 30° N with the help of variance explained by various frequency modes for different years. Variance explained by 30-60 day and 10-20 day modes were studied in relation to monsoon performance.   The northward and eastward propagation of30.60 day mod~ was noticed. The 10.20 day mode and seasonal mode dominate at latitudinal belts 5°N.10oN and 25°N-30°N respectively. Between 10°N and 25°N, both 30-60 day and 10-20 day modes occur.  


Author(s):  
Kanchan P. Rathoure

The area in question has diversified relief and amount of rainfall and soil types. It is dry region lies in east, irrigated region in north and tribal-dominant population dominant in the west. Ahmednagar district is situated partly in the upper Godavari basin and partly in the Bhīma basin occupying a somewhat central position in Maharashtra state. The climate of the district is characterized by a hot summer and general dryness throughout the year except during the southwest monsoon season (i.e., June to September). Physiographically the district forms part of Deccan Plateau. Part of Sahayadri hill ranges fall in the district. Here in this chapter, the author has elaborated about soil quality and ground water quality near IOCL Terminal Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, India.


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