Abstract
Collaborative Observations of Boundary Currents, Water Mass Variability, and Monsoon Response in the Southern Bay of Bengal
Highlights
The seas around Sri Lanka serve as conduits for exchange between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea
As part of the US Office of Naval Research Air-Sea Interactions Regional Initiative (ASIRI), our goal is to provide a better understanding of the physical structure of this flow, its response to monsoon winds, and its long-term variability
SUMMARY A combination of remote-sensing and in situ observations resolves seasonal shifts in the boundary currents and circulation pathways around Sri Lanka, which play an important role in brokering communication between the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, and the equatorial Indian Ocean (e.g., Schott et al, 1994; Vinayachandran and Yamagata 1998; Jensen, 2001)
Summary
Seasonal exchanges of water between the two basins modulate the impacts of these large, asymmetric inputs by removing freshwater from the Bay of Bengal and exporting saline waters from the northern Arabian Sea (Shetye et al, 1996; Jensen, 2001; Schott and McCreary, 2001; Shankar et al, 2002). Wijesekera et al (2015) document subsurface intensified northward currents east (offshore) of the EICC This provides a potential pathway for import of high-salinity Arabian Sea water into the Bay of Bengal during the northeast monsoon, when surface currents instead favor export of relatively fresh Bay of Bengal water into the Arabian Sea. Argo float temperature and salinity, Aviso sea surface height, and models show that an anticyclonic eddy, typically positioned off the Sri Lankan coast, deflects part of the EICC eastward to form the East Sri Lanka Jet (ESLJ; Figure 1c).
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