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Building better ocean and climate models with salinity data.

Oceanographers offer clues to Malaysian airlines crash.

Aircraft debris looks like it's from MH370 - now can we find the rest?

Aircraft debris looks like it's from MH370 - now can we find the rest?

How Missing Jet's Debris Could Have Floated to Réunion.

How Missing Jet's Debris Could Have Floated to Réunion.

Expanding 'dead zone' in Arabian Sea raises climate change fears.

MAAWA Create 3D Models of Rottnest Ilsand Shipwrecks.

A new project focussing on Sustainable Oceans, Livelihoods and food Security Through Increased Capacity in Ecosystem research (SOLSTICE), aims to strengthen the ability of the nine Western Indian Ocean nations to address the challenges of sustainable management of marine resources.

The Unfolding Tragedy of Climate Change in Bangladesh.

Drops locked inside rock offer clues to modeling Earth's climate and ocean circulation.

The oxygen minimum zone has a significant effect on primary production, marine biodiversity, food web structure, and marine biogeochemical cycle. The Arabian Sea oxygen minimum zone (ASOMZ) is one of the largest and most extreme oxygen minimum zones in the world, with a positional decoupling from the region of phytoplankton blooms. The core of the ASOMZ is located to the east of the high primary production region in the western Arabian Sea. In this study, a coupled physical-biogeochemical numerical model was used to quantify the impact of ocean circulation and settling of particulate organic matters (POMs) on the decoupling of the ASOMZ. Model results demonstrate that the increased (decreased) dissolved oxygen replenishment in the western (central) Arabian Sea is responsible for decoupling. The oxygen-rich intermediate water (200-1,000 m) from the southern Arabian Sea enters the Arabian Sea along the west coast and hardly reaches the central Arabian Sea, resulting in a significant oxygen replenishment in the western Arabian Sea high-productivity region (Gulf of Aden) but only a minor contribution in the central Arabian Sea. Besides that, the POMs that are remineralized to consume central Arabian Sea dissolved oxygen comprises not only local productivity in winter bloom but also the transport from the western Arabian Sea high-productivity region (Oman coast) in summer bloom. More dissolved oxygen replenishment in the western Arabian Sea, and higher dissolved oxygen consumption and fewer dissolved oxygen replenishment in the central Arabian Sea could contribute to the decoupling of the ASOMZ and phytoplankton productive zone.

The Seychelles-Chagos Thermocline Ridge (SCTR, 5°S-10°S, 50°E-80°E) is a unique open-ocean upwelling region in the southwestern Indian Ocean. Due to the negative wind stress curl between the equatorial westerlies and southeasterly trade winds, SCTR is known as a strong upwelling region with high biological productivity, providing a primary fishing zone for the surrounding countries. Given its importance in shaping the variability of the Indian Ocean climate by understanding the sea-air interaction and its dynamics, the simulation of SCTR is evaluated using outputs from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase Sixth (CMIP6). Compared to observations, 23 out of 27 CMIP6 models tend to simulate considerably deeper SCTR thermocline depth (defined as the 20°C isotherm depth (D20))- a common bias in climate models. The deep bias is related to the easterly wind bias in the equatorial to southern Indian Ocean, which is prominent in boreal summer and fall. This easterly wind bias produces a weak annual mean Ekman pumping, especially in the boreal fall. Throughout the year, the observed Ekman pumping is positive and is driven by two components: the curl term, is associated with the wind stress curl, leads to upwelling during boreal summer to fall; the beta term, is linked to planetary beta and zonal wind stress, contributes to downwelling during boreal spring to fall. However, the easterly wind bias in the CMIP6 increases both the positive curl and negative beta terms. The beta term bias offsets the curl term bias and reduces the upwelling velocity. Furthermore, the easterly wind bias is likely caused by the reduced east-west sea surface temperature (SST) difference associated with a pronounced warm bias in the western equatorial Indian Ocean, accompanied by the east-west mean sea level pressure gradient over the Indian Ocean. Furthermore, this study finds local wind-induced Ekman pumping to be a more dominant factor in thermocline depth bias than Rossby waves,

The seasonality of mesoscale eddy intensity in the southeastern tropical Indian Ocean (SETIO) is investigated using the latest eddy dataset and marine hydrological reanalysis data. The results show that the eddy intensity in an area to the southwest coast of the Java Island has prominent seasonality-eddies in this area are relatively weak during the first half of the year but tend to enhance in August and peak in October. Further analysis reveals that the strong eddies in October are actually developed from the ones mainly formed in July to September, and the barotropic instability and baroclinic instability are the key dynamics for eddy development, but each plays a different role at different development stages. The barotropic instability resulting from the horizontal shear of surface current plays an important role in the early stage of eddy development. However, in the late development stage, the baroclinic instability induced by the sloping pycnocline becomes the major energy contributor of eddy development.

A modeling study shows how warm subtropical waters and cold Antarctic waters combine to form an Indo-Pacific water mass that plays a key role in Earth's climate.

Accurate estimation of air-sea fluxes is essential for advancing ocean modeling, observational studies, and understanding air-sea interactions. To address this need, the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) developed and deployed a Flux Reference System (INCOIS-FRS) onboard ORV Sagar Nidhi. This article provides an overview of the system, its components, data acquisition methods, flux computation techniques, and preliminary results. The INCOIS-FRS integrates an Eddy Covariance Flux System (ECFS) and an Automated Weather Station (AWS). The ECFS collects high-frequency (20 Hz) data to directly estimate the latent heat flux (LHF), sensible heat flux (SHF), and momentum flux (τ) using the Eddy Covariance (EC) method. The AWS records meteorological and oceanic variables at 1 Hz, enabling flux estimates using the COARE 3.5 algorithm. A spectrally flat Class-A pyranometer and a pyrgeometer provide climate-grade measurements of downward shortwave and longwave radiation, which, combined with EC-derived SHF and LHF, yield the net heat flux. This article presents preliminary results inferred from data collected by INCOIS-FRS during a cruise in the Arabian Sea from 1-16 July 2023. Data from this system are useful for validating model outputs and satellite observations, refining flux parameterizations, marine boundary layer studies, and improving air-sea interaction models. INCOIS-FRS represents a first step toward equipping more oceanographic platforms, both crewed and uncrewed, with flux reference units. Future plans include expanding such deployments to enhance observational coverage and support research on air-sea fluxes across the Indian Ocean and other regions.