Abstract
Marine Heat Waves (MHWs) can cause significant distress to marine environment and modulate air-sea interaction, which in turn can have economic and societal impacts. This study aims to identify surface and subsurface MHWs in the Bay of Bengal using available sea-surface temperature data and buoy observations spanning four decades. The results show significant increase in the number, frequency, duration, and intensity of surface MHWs in recent years. To better understand the relationship between MHW occurrences and different phases of two climate phenomena, namely, the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, multiple extreme MHW event years between 2008 and 2018 are analyzed. The findings show that the surface MHWs become more prominent during El Niño/positive IOD events due to weakened winds, increased net heat flux input towards the ocean, increased stratification and warming tendency through vertical processes in the presence of inversion. This, in turn, affects the surface biological productivity in the region. Additionally, surface MHWs were also found to be driven by surface currents and eddies. On the other hand, subsurface MHWs develop during negative IOD/La Niña conditions due to the deepening of the thermocline, which is forced by coastally trapped downwelling Kelvin waves and reflected downwelling Rossby waves, and is followed by substantial freshening of deeper layers. This study provides a deeper understanding of the causes of surface and subsurface MHWs in the Bay of Bengal, which is a crucial basin in influencing monsoon and cyclonic events affecting its surrounding landmasses.
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Daily GHRSST and NOAA OISST data are available at https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/GHRSST and https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.noaa.oisst.v2.highres.html. RAMA buoy (https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/drupal/disdel/) provides point-based met-ocean data. Wind-speed and NHF data is taken from Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) TropFlux (https://incois.gov.in/tropflux/data_access.jsp; registration required). Copernicus Marine Services Information (CMEMS) provides SLA data (https://doi.org/10.48670/moi-00148). Surface current is taken from Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO; Sikhakolli et al. 2013). NASA’s Ocean Color website offers Chl-a data (https://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/l3/). NOAA (https://stateoftheocean.osmc.noaa.gov/sur/) provides DMI and Niño3.4 index-data. All the links were accessed on 5th February, 2023.
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Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial and infrastructural support from the Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar to carry out this research. The authors are thankful to Rahul Deogharia and Abhijit Shee, Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, for scientific discussions. The authors thank NOAA, INCOIS, CMEMS, ISRO and NASA for providing the datasets freely. The figures are produced using Matlab software.
Funding
The research work is supported by Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, India. Financial assistance is provided by Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Government of India (Grant no. CRG/2019/005842), SERB’s VAJRA Faculty Scheme (Grant no. VJR/2018/000108), and National Science Foundation (NSF), US Government (Grant no. OCE 1851242 and OCE 2123283).
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HG: Designing the study, conceptualization, methodology, figure generation, formal analysis, investigation, and original draft preparation. SS: Conceptualization, review and editing, funding acquisition, and supervision. AG: Review and editing, funding acquisition, and supervision. GG: Review and editing.
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Gupta, H., Sil, S., Gangopadhyay, A. et al. Observed surface and subsurface Marine Heat Waves in the Bay of Bengal from in-situ and high-resolution satellite data. Clim Dyn 62, 203–221 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-06913-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-06913-5