Advection and diffusion of Indonesian Throughflow Water within the Indian Ocean South Equatorial Current
- 1 November 1997
- journal article
- Published by American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Geophysical Research Letters
- Vol. 24 (21) , 2573-2576
- https://doi.org/10.1029/97gl01061
Abstract
Warm, low salinity Pacific water weaves through the Indonesian Seas into the eastern boundary of the Indian Ocean. The Indonesian Throughflow Water (ITW) adds freshwater into the Indian Ocean as it spreads by the advection and diffusion within the Indian Ocean's South Equatorial Current (SEC). The low salinity throughflow trace, centered along 12°S, stretches across the Indian Ocean, separating the monsoon dominated regime of the northern Indian Ocean from the more typical subtropical stratification to the south. ITW is well represented within the SEC thermocline, extending with concentrations above 80% of initial characteristics from the sea surface to 300‐m within the eastern half of the Indian Ocean, with 60% concentration reaching well into the western Indian Ocean. The ITW transport within the SEC varies from 4 to 12 × 106 m³ sec−1, partly in response to variations of the injection rate at the eastern boundary and to the likelihood of a zonally elongated recirculation cell between the Equatorial Counter Current and the SEC within the Indian Ocean. Lateral mixing disperses the ITW plume meridionally with an effective isopycnal mixing coefficient of 1.1 to 1.6 × 104 m²sec−1.This publication has 23 references indexed in Scilit:
- GRL Special Section: WOCE Indian Ocean ExpeditionGeophysical Research Letters, 1997
- Geostrophic transport of the Pacific‐Indian Oceans throughflowJournal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 1996
- Hydrological and chlorofluoromethane measurements of the Indonesian throughflow entering the Indian OceanJournal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 1996
- Low‐frequency fluctuations in the Indonesian throughflow through Lombok StraitJournal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 1996
- Pathways of water between the Pacific and Indian oceans in the Indonesian seasNature, 1996
- Observations of geostrophic transport variability in the western tropical Indian OceanDeep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, 1995
- Measurements within the Pacific-Indian oceans throughflow regionDeep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, 1994
- Vertical Mixing in the Indonesian ThermoclineJournal of Physical Oceanography, 1992
- Interocean exchange of thermocline waterJournal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 1986
- Particle trajectories and simple models of transport in coherent vorticesDynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans, 1985