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Observed intraseasonal and seasonal variability of the West India Coastal Current on the continental slope

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Abstract

We present current data from acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) moored on the continental slope off the west coast of India. The data were collected at four locations (roughly at Kanyakumari, Kollam, Goa, and Mumbai) extending from ∼ 7° to ∼ 20°N during 2008–2012. The observations show that a seasonal cycle, including an annual cycle, is present in the West India Coastal Current (WICC); this seasonal cycle, which strengthens northward, shows considerable interannual variability and is not as strongly correlated along the coast as in climatologies based on ship drifts or the altimeter. The alongshore decorrelation of the WICC is much stronger at intraseasonal periods, which are evident during the winter monsoon all along the coast. This intraseasonal variability is stronger in the south. A striking feature of the WICC is upward phase propagation, which implies an undercurrent whose depth becomes shallower as the season progresses. There are also instances when the phase propagates downward. At the two southern mooring locations off Kollam and Kanyakumari, the cross-shore current, which is usually associated with eddy-like circulations, is comparable to the alongshore current on occasions. A comparison with data from the OSCAR (Ocean Surface Currents Analyses Real-time) data product shows not only similarities, but also significant differences, particularly in the phase. One possible reason for this phase mismatch between the ADCP current at 48 m and the OSCAR current, which represents the current in the 0–30 m depth range, is the vertical phase propagation. Current products based on Ocean General Circulation Models like ECCO2 (Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II) and GODAS (Global Ocean Data Assimilation System) show a weaker correlation with the ADCP current, and ECCO2 does capture some of the observed variability.

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Acknowledgements

The state estimates for ECCO2 were provided by the ECCO Consortium for Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean funded by the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP); the data were downloaded from http://ecco2.jpl.nasa.gov/products/. The GODAS current data were provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their website at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/. The OSCAR data were obtained from the Physical Oceanography DAAC of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (downloaded from http://www.oscar.noaa.gov/). The altimeter products were produced by Ssalto/Duacs and distributed by AVISO, with support from CNES (http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/duacs/). The FORTRAN code for wavelet analysis and the R package for wavelet coherence spectra were downloaded from http://paos.colorado.edu/research/wavelets/ and http://tocsy.agnld.uni-potsdam.de/wavelets/, respectively. All figures in this paper were made using Generic Mapping Tools and the analysis was done using Ferret. Authors also thank the officers, crew, and seamen of CRV Sindhu Sankalp and BTV Sagar Manjusha for providing the necessary support for deploying and recovering the ADCPs. The support from CSIR–NIO’s research vessel management group both onshore and offshore is gratefully acknowledged. Financial support for this work was provided by CSIR and INCOIS (Ministry of Earth Sciences). P Amol thanks CSIR for his research fellowship. Finally, the authors acknowledge the critical comments from two anonymous reviewers, which helped them correct mistakes in the FFT analysis and improve the presentation. This is CSIR–NIO contribution 5535.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CSIR–National Institute of Oceanography, Dona Paula, Goa, 403 004, India.

    P Amol, D Shankar, V Fernando, A Mukherjee, S G Aparna, R Fernandes, G S Michael, S T Khalap, N P Satelkar, Y Agarvadekar, M G Gaonkar, A P Tari, A Kankonkar & S P Vernekar

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  2. D Shankar
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  3. V Fernando
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  4. A Mukherjee
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Correspondence to D Shankar.

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Amol, P., Shankar, D., Fernando, V. et al. Observed intraseasonal and seasonal variability of the West India Coastal Current on the continental slope. J Earth Syst Sci 123, 1045–1074 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-014-0449-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-014-0449-5

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