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Enhanced marine meteorological atlas for tropical Indian Ocean

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Abstract

A new marine meteorological climatology named Marine Meteorological Atlas for Tropical Indian Ocean (MaMetAtTIO) is generated for tropical Indian Ocean (TIO). The climatology is derived from ship-based observations of International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Dataset (ICOADS) Release 3.0 and those obtained from the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The climatologies of several independent and derived variables are constructed and the framework is presented in detail. The enhancement in MaMetAtTIO is statistically evaluated with reference to ICOADS R3.0 climatology. ICOADS Release 3.0 dataset has been found to be self-robust, as there was no significant improvement in the monthly and annual climatology of independent variables in MaMetAtTIO even after adding new records to ICOADS Release 3.0. However, there are few filled grid points in the individual year–month summaries owing to the addition of unique data from IMD. An attempt to correct the systematic error in Beaufort estimated wind speed, has reduced the annual net heat flux for TIO by 14 W/m2. Furthermore, MaMetAtTIO is compared with in-situ data from moored buoys and Tropflux datasets. Two case studies (Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) study, empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis) were undertaken to highlight the importance of adding individual observations to ICOADS R3.0 and the gridded fields of MaMetAtTIO. Better correlation (difference being significant) was observed between the time series derived from MaMetAtTIO and MJO index and the addition of new data resulted in filling of gaps in individual year–month summaries favourable to carry out statistical analyses such as EOF.

Research highlights

  • Marine meteorological atlas constructed exclusively from ship observations.

  • Gridded fields of annual, monthly climatologies and individual year–month summaries are available for all marine-meteorological parameters including fluxes.

  • A long climatology dataset showing well-defined features of most of the climate phenomenon and their influences across tropical Indian Ocean.

  • A 14 W/m2 reduction in net annual heat flux for tropical Indian Ocean obtained through observational error correction.

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Data availability

The gridded fields of MaMetAtTIO annual, monthly climatologies and individual year–month summaries of the variables mentioned in table 3 are available at INCOIS-LAS server.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Director, INCOIS for the facilities provided to accomplish this study. The authors also thank ICOADS R3.0 team for collecting and making the dataset available for performing this research study. The authors are grateful to IMD team for availing easy access to such abundant marine meteorological dataset. We are grateful to Dr Suprit Kumar for his valuable ideas to carry out the case studies. We are thankful to Mr J Pavan Kumar for helping with the plotting. This is INCOIS contribution number 455.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), ‘Ocean Valley’, Pragathi Nagar (BO), Nizampet (SO), Hyderabad, Telangana, 500 090, India

    Nunna Kameshwari, T V S Udaya Bhaskar, E Pattabhi Rama Rao & Venkata Jampana

Authors
  1. Nunna Kameshwari
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  2. T V S Udaya Bhaskar
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  3. E Pattabhi Rama Rao
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  4. Venkata Jampana
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Contributions

Kameshwari Nunna processed the data, conducted the analyses and wrote the paper. TVS Udaya Bhaskar and Venkata Jampana reviewed the analyses and manuscript. E Pattabhi Rama Rao and TVS Udaya Bhaskar supervised the project.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nunna Kameshwari.

Additional information

Communicated by Kavirajan Rajendran

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Kameshwari, N., Bhaskar, T.V.S.U., Rao, E.P.R. et al. Enhanced marine meteorological atlas for tropical Indian Ocean. J Earth Syst Sci 131, 107 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-022-01844-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-022-01844-x

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