Rapid 21st Century Warming in the Southern Subtropical Indian Ocean Driven by Altered Inter‐Basin Connections

Details

• Journal Title:
  International Journal of Climatology
• Personal Author:
  Sajidh, C. K. ; Chatterjee, Abhisek ; Murtugudde, Raghu ; McPhaden, Michael J. ; Shenoi, S. S. C. ; Vinayachandran, P. N.
• NOAA Program & Office:
  OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; PMEL (Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory)
• Description:
  The Indian Ocean has been warming rapidly over the last few decades. However, this warming has not been uniform, with the southern subtropical Indian Ocean (STIO, 15°S–35°S) cooling until the late 20th century and then warming abruptly. We show that the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) into the Indian Ocean exhibits strong decadal variability with a weaker negative trend over the recent decades, and hence cannot explain the continued heat gain by the upper ocean of the STIO at a rate of 0.41 (± 0.02) × 1022 J/decade. An increased ITF during the hiatus in global surface warming initiated the STIO warming, resulting in a weaker Mascarene high and its decoupling from the Southern Ocean atmospheric variability. This enhanced Tasman inflow into the Indian Ocean and weakened Agulhas outflow offsetting the recently weakened ITF, caused a positive feedback that continued to warm the upper ocean of the STIO.
• Source:
  International Journal of Climatology, 46(1)
• Series:
  PMEL contribution   no. 5587
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.70157
• ISSN:
  0899-8418 ; 1097-0088
• Format:
  pdf
• Publisher:
  Wiley
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Rights Information:
  Accepted Manuscript
• Compliance:
  Submitted
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:2137ada0e52f11310455dcad8ded3a30c67549c639305274fe10df95b5a842b57c32acec80a49a0f29971e0d6b863b7716538aa19e6173dd0ce35f3b27651bae
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/72606/noaa_72606_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.26 MB ]