Abstract
The variability in the long-term temperature and sea level over the north Indian Ocean during the period 1958–2000 has been investigated using an Ocean General Circulation Model, Modular Ocean Model version 4. The model simulated fields are compared with the sea level observations from tide-gauges, Topex/Poseidon (T/P) satellite, in situ temperature profile observations from WHOI moored buoy and sea surface temperature (SST) observations from DS1, DS3 and DS4 moored buoys. It is seen that the long (6–8 years) warming episodes in the SST over the north Indian Ocean are followed by short episodes (2–3 years) of cooling. The model temperature and sea level anomaly over the north Indian Ocean show an increasing trend in the study period. The model thermocline heat content per unit area shows a linear increasing trend (from 1958–2000) at the rate of 0.0018 × 1011 J/m2 per year for north Indian Ocean. North Indian Ocean sea level anomaly (thermosteric component) also shows a linear increasing trend of 0.31 mm/year during 1958–2000.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alory G, Wijffels S and Meyers G 2007 Observed temperature trends in the Indian Ocean over 1960–1999 and associated mechanisms; Geophys. Res. Lett. 34 L02606 doi:10.1029/2006GL028044.
Antonov J I, Levitus S and Boyer T P 2002 Steric sea level variations during 1957–1994: Importance of salinity; J. Geophys. Res. 107 doi:10.1029/2001JC000964.
Bindoff N L, Willebrand J, Artale V, Cazenave A, Gregory J, Gulev S, Hanawa K, Le Quéré C, Levitus S, Nojiri Y, Shum C K, Talley L D and Unnikrishnan A 2007 Observations: Oceanic Climate Change and Sea Level; In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds) Solomon S, Qin D, Manning M, Chen Z, Marquis M, Averyt K B, Tignor M and Miller H L, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, USA.
Bryan K and Lewis L J 1979 A water mass model of the world ocean; J. Geophys. Res. 84 2503–2517.
Carton J A, Giese B S and Grodsky S A 2005 Sea level rise and the warming of the oceans in the Simple Ocean Data Assimilation (SODA) ocean reanalysis; J. Geophys. Res. 110 C0900610.1029/2004JC002817.
Carton J A and Giese B S 2006 SODA: A reanalysis of ocean climate; Mon. Wea. Rev., accepted.
Chambers D P, Tapley B D and Stewart R H 1999 Anomalous warming in the Indian Ocean coincident with El Niño; J. Geophys. Res. 104 3035–3047.
Cheney R E, Miller L, Agreen R, Doyle N and Lillibridge J 1994 Topex/Roseidon: The 2-cm solution; J. Geophys. Res. 99 24,553–24,563.
Church J A, White N J, Coleman R, Lambeck K and Mitrovica J X 2004 Estimates of the regional distribution of sea-level rise over the 1950 to 2000 period; J. Climate 17 2609–2625.
Church J A, White N J and Hunter J R 2006 Sea-level rise at tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean islands; Global and Planetary Change 53 155–168.
Griffies S M, Harrison M J, Pacnowski R C and Rosati A 2003 A Technical Guide to MOM4; GFDL Ocean Group Technical Report No. 5, Princeton, NJ: NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.
Han W, Meehl G A and Hu A 2006 Interpretation of tropical thermocline cooling in the Indian and Pacific oceans during recent decades; Geophys. Res. Lett. 33 L23615 doi:10.1029/2006GL027982.
Large W G, McWilliams J C and Doney S C 1994 Oceanic vertical mixing: A review and a model with a nonlocal boundary layer parameterization; Reviews of Geophysics 32 363–403.
Large W G and Yeager S G 2004 Diurnal to decadal global forcing for ocean and sea-ice models: the data sets and flux climatologies; NCAR, Technical Note NCAR/TN-460+STR, 111 pp.
Levitun S 1998 Climatological atlas of the world ocean; Tech. Rep., NOAA, Rockville, Md.
Levitus S, Antonov J and Boyer T P 2000 Warming of the world ocean; Science 287 2225–2229.
Levitus S, Antonov J L, Wang J, Delworth T L, Dixon K W and Broccoli A J 2001 Anthropogenic warming of Earth’s climate system; Science 292 267–270.
Levitus S, Antonov J and Boyer T P 2005 Warming of the world ocean, 1955–2003; Geophys. Res. Lett. 32 doi:10.1029/2004GL021592.
McDougall T J, Jacket D R, Wright D G and Feistel R 2003 Accurate and computationally efficient algorithms for potential temperature and density of seawater; J. Atm. Ocean. Tech. 20 730–741.
Premkumar K, Ravichandran M, Kalsi S R, Sengupta D and Gadgil S 2000 First results from new observational system over the Indian Seas; Curr. Sci. 78 323–330.
Rayner N A, Parker D E, Horton E B, Folland C K, Alexander L V, Rowell D P, Kent E C and Kaplan A 2003 Global analysis of sea surface temperature, sea ice, and night marine air temperature since the late nineteenth century; J. Geophys. Res. 108 doi:10.1029/2002JD002670.
Rossby C 1959 Current problems in meteorology; In: The Atmosphere and Sea in Motion; Rockefeller Inst. Press, New York, pp. 9–50.
Sengupta D and Ravichandran M 2001 Oscillations of Bay of Bengal sea surface temperature during the 1998 summer monsoon; Geophys. Res. Lett. 28 2033–2036.
Tapley B D, Chambers D P, Shum C K, Eanes R J and Ries J C 1994 Accuracy assessment of large scale dynamic topography from TOPEX/POSEIDON altimetry; J. Geophys. Res. 99 24,605–24,617.
Unnikrishnan A S, Kumar K R, Fernandes S E, Michael G S, and Patwardhan S K 2006 Sea level changes along the Indian coast: Observations and projections; Curr. Sci. 90 362–368.
Unnikrishnan A S and Shankar D 2007 Are sea-level-rise trends along the coasts of the north Indian Ocean consistent with global estimates?; Global and Planetary Change 57 301–307.
Vinayachandran P N, Saji N H and Yamagata T 1999 Response of the equatorial Indian Ocean to unusual wind event during 1994; Geophys. Res. Lett. 26 1613–1616.
Weller R A, Baumgartner M F, Josey S A, Fischer A S and Kindle J C 1998 Atmospheric forcing in the Arabian Sea during 1994–1995: observations and comparisons with climatology and models; Deep-Sea Res. Part II 45 1961–1999.
Weller R A, Fischer A S, Rudnick D L, Eriksen C C, Dickey T D, Marra J, Fox C and Leben R 2002 Moored observations of upper-ocean response to the monsoons in the Arabian Sea during 1994–1995; Deep-Sea Res. Part II 49 2195–2230.
Woodworth P L and Player R 2003 The Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level: an update to the 21st century; J. Coastal Res. 19 287–295.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Thompson, B., Gnanaseelan, C., Parekh, A. et al. North Indian Ocean warming and sea level rise in an OGCM. J Earth Syst Sci 117, 169–178 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-008-0007-0
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-008-0007-0