The Second International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE-2): Motivating New Exploration in a Poorly Understood Ocean Basin (Volume 1)

Abstract

More than 60 years ago the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO launched one of the greatest oceanographic expeditions of all time, the International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE; Fig. 1). The expedition was motivated by the need to explore one of the last great frontiers on Earth. It dramatically advanced the understanding of monsoon dynamics, documenting for the first time the northern Indian Ocean’s response to monsoon forcing and provided a more detailed account of the complex topography of the Indian Ocean basin that helped establish the theory of plate tectonics. However, 60 years later, our understanding of geologic, oceanic and atmospheric processes in the Indian Ocean is still rudimentary in many respects. This is largely because the Indian Ocean remains under-sampled in both space and time, especially compared to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The situation is compounded by the Indian Ocean being a dynamically complex and highly variable system under monsoonal influence.