The Pacific/Indian Ocean pressure difference and its influence on the Indonesian Seas circulation: Part II—The study with specified sea-surface heights

Abstract

In Part II we construct new numerical solutions to further analyze our results in Part I (Burnett et al., 2003), that indicate the lack of a unique relationship between the Pacie c/Indian Ocean pressure difference and the total transport of the Indonesian Throughe ow (ITF). These new solutions involve perturbations of the sea level relative to the original solutions. We present detailed analyses of the overall momentumand energy balances for these new solutions to stay consistent with the procedures developed in Part I. The results validate our conclusions regarding the lack of a unique relationship between the pressure head and the value of the total transport of the ITF. However, based on results from all the experiments, we have found that the seasonal variations of the total transport of the ITF are in phase with the pressure-head variations. Thus the hypothesis by Wyrtki (1987) that the pressure head, measured by the sea-surface-height difference between Davao (Philippines) and Darwin (Australia), is well correlated with the total transport is qualitatively supported.