Science Highlights

Ocean Climate Observing Requirements in Support of Climate Research and Climate Information

The CLIVAR Science Steering Committee (SSG) coordinated the co-chairs of its panels and research foci to produce a white paper for OceanObs’19 entitled ‘Ocean Climate Observing Requirements in Support of Climate Research and Climate Information’, that has recently been published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

Delivering Sustained, Coordinated, and Integrated Observations of the Southern Ocean for Global Impact

Schematic of a cyberinfrastructure-based vision for SOOS (Meredith et al., 2013; reproduced with permission). Combined with satellite remote sensing, data from both autonomous and non-autonomous platforms would be relayed to ground stations in real time. Assimilating ocean models would produce near-real time state estimates of each of the parameters in the system and associated error fields would then be used to re-task the autonomous platforms in real time. This will maximize the spatial–temporal coverage

The major scientific and observational progress of the last decade and  an assessment of key priorities for the coming decade with the goal of achieving the SOOS vision and delivering essential data to all end-users were presented in the paper jointly contributed by SOOS and SORP, in addition with other authors.

A Sustained Ocean Observing System in the Indian Ocean for Climate Related Scientific Knowledge and Societal Needs

An article on 'A Sustained Ocean Observing System in the Indian Ocean for Climate Related Scientific Knowledge and Societal Needs' has recently been published on Frontiers in Marine Science, as one of the contribution to the 'OceanObs'19: An Ocean of Opportunity'. 

Pantropical climate interactions, more vigorous than previously thought

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) affects the rest of the world’s tropics by perturbing global atmosphere circulation, inducing anomalous Sea surface temperatures over the tropical Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean.  The associated wind variations in the Indian Ocean and in the equatorial and north tropical Atlantic in turn contribute to ENSO dynamics. In addition, the tropical interbasin linkages vary on decadal time scales. 

Enabling Regional to Local Predictions in Support of Reliable Climate Information is key in the Post COP21 World of Transient Climate Change

The scientific challenge is extreme due to the rich complexity of interactions and feedbacks between regional and global processes, each of which affects the global climate trajectory. Technical development, international coordination, and a close interaction between the science and stakeholder communities are also required.

Equatorial-origin wave signals contributing to the Eddy Kinetic Energy in the Bay of Bengal

The complicated communications between the BOB and the equatorial Indian Ocean through both ocean and atmospheric teleconnections are one of the most important aspects of the tropical Indian Ocean climate. By analyzing satellite observational data and ocean general circulation model experiments, this study investigates the key processes that determine the spatial distribution and seasonality of intraseasonal eddy kinetic energy (EKE) within the Bay of Bengal (BOB).

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