Project description:Most future projections conducted with coupled general circulation models simulate a non-uniform Indian Ocean warming, with warming hotspots occurring in the Arabian Sea (AS) and the southeastern Indian Ocean (SEIO). But little is known about the underlying physical drivers. Here, we are using a suite of large ensemble simulations of the Community Earth System Model 2 to elucidate the causes of non-uniform Indian Ocean warming. Strong negative air-sea interactions in the Eastern Indian Ocean are responsible for a future weakening of the zonal sea surface temperature gradient, resulting in a slowdown of the Indian Ocean Walker circulation and the generation of southeasterly wind anomalies over the AS. These contribute to anomalous northward ocean heat transport, reduced evaporative cooling, a weakening in upper ocean vertical mixing and an enhanced AS future warming. In contrast, the projected warming in the SEIO is related to a reduction of low-cloud cover and an associated increase in shortwave radiation. Therefore, the regional character of air-sea interactions plays a key role in promoting future large-scale tropical atmospheric circulation anomalies with implications for society and ecosystems far outside the Indian Ocean realm.
Project description:Over the past half a century, both the Indian Ocean (IO) and the North Atlantic Ocean (NA) exhibit strong warming trends like a global mean surface temperature (SST). Here, we show that not only simply as a result of increased greenhouse gases, but the IO-NA interaction through atmospheric teleconnection boosts up their warming trends. Climate model simulations demonstrate that the IO warming increases the NA SST by enhancing the longwave radiation through atmospheric teleconnection, subsequently, the warmer NA SST-induced atmospheric teleconnection leads to IO warming by reducing evaporative cooling with weakened surface winds. This two-way interaction (i.e., IO-NA warming chain) acts as positive feedback that reinforces warming over both ocean basins. The Pacific Ocean is partly involved in this warming chain as a modulator in an interdecadal timescale. These results highlight the importance of understanding ocean-basin interactions that may provide a more accurate future projection of warming.
Project description:Extreme positive Indian Ocean Dipole (pIOD) events are amplified by non-linear ocean-atmosphere interactions and are characterized by pronounced cooling in the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean. These non-linear feedbacks are not adequately represented in historical products of sea surface temperatures that underestimate the magnitude of extreme pIOD events. Here, we present a sea surface temperature (SST) reconstruction based on monthly coral Sr/Ca ratios measured in two coral cores from Enggano Island (Indonesia), that lies in the eastern pole of the IOD. The coral SST reconstruction extends from 1930 to 2008 and captures the magnitude of cooling during extreme pIOD events as shown in recent satellite and reanalysis data of SST that include ocean dynamics. The corals indicate that the 1961 pIOD event was at least as severe as the 1997 event, while the 1963 pIOD was more comparable to the 2006 event. The magnitude 1967 pIOD is difficult to assess at present due to poor replication between coral cores, and may be comparable to either 1997 or 2006. Cooling during the 1972 pIOD was short-lived and followed by pronounced warming, as seen in the moderate pIOD event of 1982. A combination of coral SST reconstructions and an extension of new reanalysis products of SST to historical time scales could help to better assess the severity and impact of past pIOD events such as the ones seen in the 1960s.
Project description:Atlantic Niño is the Atlantic equivalent of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and it has prominent impacts on regional and global climate. Existing studies suggest that the Atlantic Niño may arise from local atmosphere-ocean interaction and is sometimes triggered by the Atlantic Meridional Mode (AMM), with overall weak ENSO contribution. By analyzing observational datasets and performing numerical model experiments, here we show that the Atlantic Niño can be induced by the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). We find that the enhanced rainfall in the western tropical Indian Ocean during positive IOD weakens the easterly trade winds over the tropical Atlantic, causing warm anomalies in the central and eastern equatorial Atlantic basin and therefore triggering the Atlantic Niño. Our finding suggests that the cross-basin impact from the tropical Indian Ocean plays a more important role in affecting interannual climate variability than previously thought.
Project description:It has been widely believed that the tropical Pacific trade winds weakened in the last century and would further decrease under a warmer climate in the 21st century. Recent high-quality observations, however, suggest that the tropical Pacific winds have actually strengthened in the past two decades. Precise causes of the recent Pacific climate shift are uncertain. Here we explore how the enhanced tropical Indian Ocean warming in recent decades favors stronger trade winds in the western Pacific via the atmosphere and hence is likely to have contributed to the La Niña-like state (with enhanced east-west Walker circulation) through the Pacific ocean-atmosphere interactions. Further analysis, based on 163 climate model simulations with centennial historical and projected external radiative forcing, suggests that the Indian Ocean warming relative to the Pacific's could play an important role in modulating the Pacific climate changes in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Project description:Fronts are ubiquitous discrete features of the global ocean often associated with enhanced vertical velocities, in turn boosting primary production. Fronts thus form dynamical and ephemeral ecosystems where numerous species meet across all trophic levels. Fronts are also targeted by fisheries. Capturing ocean fronts and studying their long-term variability in relation with climate change is thus key for marine resource management and spatial planning. The Mediterranean Sea and the Southwest Indian Ocean are natural laboratories to study front-marine life interactions due to their energetic flow at sub-to-mesoscales, high biodiversity (including endemic and endangered species) and numerous conservation initiatives. Based on remotely-sensed Sea Surface Temperature and Height, we compute thermal fronts (2003-2020) and attracting Lagrangian coherent structures (1994-2020), in both regions over several decades. We advocate for the combined use of both thermal fronts and attracting Lagrangian coherent structures to study front-marine life interactions. The resulting front dataset differs from other alternatives by its high spatio-temporal resolution, long time coverage, and relevant thresholds defined for ecological provinces.
Project description:The Regional Indian Ocean model based on Modular Ocean Model (MOM4p1) was used to understand the importance of a realistic representation of bathymetry on Ocean General Circulation. The model has 1/4° uniform horizontal resolution and is forced with Coordinated Ocean-Ice Reference Experiments (CORE-II) inter-annual forcing with two simulations named BLND (realistic bathymetry) and OM3 (smoothed bathymetry), which only differ in the representation of bathymetry for the years 1992-2005. We also used recent reanalysis products from ORAS5 and SODA3 and ADCP observation to compare the subsurface currents. We show that by the inclusion of realistic bathymetry, there is a significant improvement in the upper ocean salinity, temperature, and currents, particularly near the coast. The salinity and temperature of the upper ocean are very close to the observed value near the coast. The bias in the salinity and temperature was reduced to half in BLND simulation compared to OM3, which led to a more realistic East India Coastal Current (EICC). We show the first evidence of a basin-wide cyclonic gyre over the Bay of Bengal at 1000 m depth during spring, which is just opposite to that of a basin-wide anti-cyclonic gyre at the surface. We found the presence of poleward EICC during spring at 1000 m and 2000 m depth, which is opposite to that of the surface. The presence of this deeper EICC structure is completely absent during fall. We show the presence of a boundary current along the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Island at a depth of 2000 m. The observed Wyrtki Jet (WJ) magnitude and spatial structure are most realistically reproduced in BLND simulation as compared to OM3 simulations. Both ORAS5 and SODA reanalysis products underestimate the WJ magnitude. The presence of the Maldives Islands is responsible for the westward extent of Equatorial Under Current (EUC). The presence of Maldives also creates wakes on the leeward side in the EUC zonal current. During fall, EUC is better defined in the eastern Equatorial Indian Ocean and lies at a depth of between 50 and 100 m, unlike its spring counterpart, in which its core is located slightly deeper, between 100 and 150 m depth. During peak summer months, June-July, a strong eastward zonal jet is present at 1000 m depth, similar to Wyrtki Jet (WJ). Inter-monsoon Jets, i.e., spring and fall jets, are also seen but are in the opposite direction, i.e., westward, unlike eastward in WJ.
Project description:A sediment sample with high abundance (19 spherules in ~ 85 g) of spherules was recovered from Central Indian Ridge (CIR) segment S2 (70° 54' E, 25° 14' S to 70° 50' E, 24° 41' S), ~ 85 km north of Rodrigues triple junction (RTJ). On the external surface of the spherules, magnetite appears as crystals, whereas wustite mostly appears as a homogenous glass phase. These spherules are composed of wustite and magnetite hosting Mn, unlike micrometeorites which essentially host Ni. Mn is more heterogeneously distributed with a relatively higher concentration in the wustite phase than the magnetite, suggesting hydrothermal origin. Furthermore, the presence of sulfide nano-particles in the wustite phase and a minor quantity of Pb and S in the ferrihydrite matrix points to the fact that CIR spherules are of hydrothermal origin. The CIR spherules could have formed either by the interaction of the reduced hydrothermal fluids with the ultramafic/basaltic rocks or silica-undersaturated magmatic melts, or by alteration of original particles (such as cosmic spherules, volcanic spherules, or even foraminifera) via Mn-bearing hydrothermal fluids, such as released during the serpentinization of ultramafic rocks. The finding of Mn hosting wustite-magnetite assemblage suggests an hydrothermal system in the near vicinity and can be considered as an additional proxy for indication of hydrothermal activity.