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Diurnal variability of atmospheric cold pool events and associated air-sea interactions in the Bay of Bengal during the summer monsoon

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Abstract

Atmospheric cold pools generated from convective downdrafts can significantly modulate air-sea interaction processes, though the variability in cold pool events is not yet documented in the Bay of Bengal (BoB). In this study, the seasonal and diurnal variability of cold pool events (defined as a drop in air temperature greater than 1 °C within 30 min) in the BoB is examined using moored buoy measurements with 10-min temporal resolution at 8°N, 12°N, and 15°N along 90°E. The analysis shows that cold pools are plentiful and frequent during summer (May–September) and fall (October–November) compared to winter (December-February) and spring (March–April). Results also indicate a significant diurnal variability at 15°N and 12°N (but not at 8°N) during summer, with more frequent and intense cold pool events in the afternoon. Cold pools lead to an intensification of turbulent heat exchange between the ocean and atmosphere, with increased latent heat loss (~ 80 Wm−2) through both an increase in wind speed and reduction in air specific humidity and increased sensible heat loss (~ 40 Wm−2) due primarily to air temperature drops. There is also a significant diurnal variability in these air-sea exchanges during the summer, with a twofold enhancement in latent and sensible heat fluxes associated with afternoon vs nighttime cold pools events. Finally, we establish the connection between the enhancement of afternoon cold pool events and southeastward propagating synoptic-scale rainfall activity on diurnal time scales from the western BoB.

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Acknowledgements

The encouragement and facilities provided by the Director, INCOIS are gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for their extensive and constructive comments and suggestions which greatly helped to improve the manuscript. Jofia Joseph acknowledges support provided by Department of Science and Technology (DST) under the “INSPIRE” fellowship as part of the PhD programme. RAMA data are quality controlled and distributed by Global Tropical Moored Buoy Array (GTMBA) project office of NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, and are available from PMEL (https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/gtmba/pmel-theme/indian-ocean-rama). The distribution of the TRMM3B42v7 dataset is funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate and data provided by Asia-Pacific Data Research Center, which is a part of international Pacific Research Center at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, funded in part by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Data are available at https://apdrc.soest.hawaii.edu/datadoc/trmm_3b42_daily.php. TropFlux data are produced under a collaboration between Laboratoired’Océanographie: Expérimentation et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN) from Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL, Paris, France) and National Institute of Oceanography/CSIR (NIO, Goa, India) and supported by Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD, France). TropFlux relies on data provided by the ECMWF Re-Analysis interim (ERA-I) and ISCCP projects. Data are available at https://incois.gov.in/tropflux/data_access.jsp. The CERES data are available at https://ceres-tool.larc.nasa.gov/ord-tool/jsp/SYN1degEd41Selection.jsp. The Matlab code for coare3.6 is obtained from ftp://ftp1.esrl.noaa.gov/BLO/Air-Sea/bulkalg/cor3_6/. Graphics were generated using PyFerret. This is INCOIS contribution number 394 and PMEL contribution number 5090.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad, 500 090, Telangana, India

    Jofia Joseph, M. S. Girishkumar & E. Pattabhi Rama Rao

  2. Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Seattle, WA, 98115, USA

    M. J. McPhaden

  3. School of Ocean Science and Technology, Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies, Panangad, Cochin, 682506, India

    Jofia Joseph

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  1. Jofia Joseph
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Joseph, J., Girishkumar, M.S., McPhaden, M.J. et al. Diurnal variability of atmospheric cold pool events and associated air-sea interactions in the Bay of Bengal during the summer monsoon. Clim Dyn 56, 837–853 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05506-w

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