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Roles of Equatorial Ocean Currents in Sustaining the Indian Ocean Dipole Peak

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Abstract

In this study, on the basis of the results of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Ocean Reanalysis System 4, the response of equatorial ocean currents and their roles during the peak phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) are comprehensively explored. During the IOD peak season, a series of ocean responses emerge. First, significant meridional divergence in the surface layer and convergence in the subsurface layer are found in the equatorial region. The equatorial easterly winds and off-equatorial wind curl anomalies are found to be responsible for the divergence at 55°–80°E and the convergence at 70°–90°E. Second, the meridional divergence and convergence are found to favor a weakened Wyrtki jet (WJ) in the surface layer and an enhanced Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) in the subsurface layer, respectively. Therefore, these ocean responses provide ocean positive feedback that sustains the IOD peak as the weakened WJ and enhanced EUC help maintain the zonal temperature gradient. Additionally, heat budget analyses indicate that the weakened WJ favors sea surface temperature anomaly warming in the western Indian Ocean, whereas the enhanced EUC maintains the sea surface temperature anomaly cooling in the eastern Indian Ocean.

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Acknowledgements

The ECMWF ORAS4 reanalysis data were downloaded from http://apdrc.soest.hawaii.edu/dods/public_data/Reanalysis_Data/ORAS4. This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2019YFA06067 01), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDA20060502), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 420760 20, 41776023 and 91958202), the Key Special Project for Introduced Talents Team of Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) (No. GML2019ZD0306), the Innovation Academy of South China Sea Ecology and Environmental Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. ISEE2018PY06), the Key Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. ZDRW-XH-2019-2), the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. 2020340), the Rising Star Foundation of the SCSIO (No. NHXX2018WL0201), and the Independent Research Project Program of the State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography (No. LTOZZ2101). The authors also gratefully acknowledge the use of the HPCC for all numeric simulations and data analysis at the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, China

    Huibin Xing, Weiqiang Wang & Kang Xu

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Huibin Xing

  3. Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, 511458, China

    Weiqiang Wang & Kang Xu

  4. Innovation Academy of South China Sea Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 511458, China

    Weiqiang Wang

  5. School of Marine Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, 519082, China

    Dongxiao Wang

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  1. Huibin Xing
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Correspondence to Weiqiang Wang.

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Xing, H., Wang, W., Wang, D. et al. Roles of Equatorial Ocean Currents in Sustaining the Indian Ocean Dipole Peak. J. Ocean Univ. China 21, 622–632 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-022-4864-y

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