Dynamics of the meridional circulation across the equator in the Indian Ocean: Towards understanding of multi-decadal climate variability

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26800249
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Meteorology/Physical oceanography/Hydrology
• Research Institution: Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
• Principal Investigator: NAGURA Motoki 国立研究開発法人海洋研究開発機構, 地球環境観測研究開発センター, 研究員 (10421877)
• Research Collaborator: MASUMOTO Yukio
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 海洋 / 循環 / インド洋

Outline of Final Research Achievements

I worked on two issues. In-situ observations and output from a numerical simulation were used, and experiments with a simplified numerical model were conducted. The first theme is equatorial currents. For this theme, I first examined cross-equatorial currents in the central equatorial Indian Ocean and found they were caused by zonal jets impinging the Maldives Islands. Then I examined propagation of zonal jets and discussed wave dynamics. The second theme is the meridional circulation in the whole Indian Ocean. For the second theme, I first collected in-situ observations and depicted the basic features of the basin-wide circulation. Then I examined output from models that were used for the assessment report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and investigated how poor those models are in the simulation of the Indian Ocean circulation. These studies are published in four papers from international scientific journals.

Free Research Field

海洋物理