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Dipole: the 'Indian Niño' that has brought devastating drought to East Africa.

In recent years, enormous socioeconomic damage has been wreaked by recurrent abnormal weather events around the world. The seedbed for this abnormal weather is climate variability events on a massive spatiotemporal scale - those that cover thousands of kilometers and continue over months and years. Here we will review an article featured on the cover of the November 28, 2013 issue of Nature Geoscience on research predicting how a climate variability event in the tropical Indian Ocean, known as the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), will change with global warming in the future.

◆ Observational data analysis indicates that cold water brought up by coastal upwelling south of Java can trigger the onset of Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). ◆ A method to accurately determine coastal upwelling signal based on satellite chlorophyll-a data was developed and used for analysis in areas with limited observations. ◆ As IOD affects the global climate, including summer weather in Japan, the findings of this study are expected to help improve the predictability of both the global climate and IOD.

A study led by BROWN researchers showed how melting ice water from massive glaciers can ultimately lead to droughts and flooding in East Africa and Indonesia.

Flinders University oceanography experts have described a new kind of cyclone in the Indian Ocean near Sumatra after observing satellite surface winds in the region.