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Hydrography and circulation in the western Bay of Bengal during the northeast monsoon

DRS at CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography

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Title Hydrography and circulation in the western Bay of Bengal during the northeast monsoon
 
Creator Shetye, S.R.
Gouveia, A.D.
Shankar, D.
Shenoi, S.S.C.
Vinayachandran, P.N.
Sundar, D.
Michael, G.S.
Nampoothiri, G.
 
Subject hydrography
ocean circulation
monsoons
vertical profiles
temperature
salinity
halocline
coastal currents
ekman pumping
 
Description The Bay of Bengal, a semienclosed tropical basin that comes under the influence of monsoonal wind and freshwater influx, is distinguished by a strongly stratified surface layer and a seasonally reversing circulation. We discuss characteristics of these features in the western Bay during the norteast monsoon, when the East India Coastal Current (EICC) flows southward, using hydrographic data collected during December 1991. Vertical profiles show uniform temperature and salinity in a homogeneous surface layer, on average, 25 m deep but shallower northward and coastward. The halocline, immediately below, is approximately 50 m thick; salinity changes by approximately 3 parts per thousand. About two thirds of the profiles show temperature inversions in this layer. Salinity below the halocline hardly changes, and stratification is predominantly due to temperature variation. The halocline is noticeably better developed and the surface homogeneous layer is thinner in a low-salinity plume that hugs the coastline along the entire east coast of India. The plume is, on average, 50 km wide, with isohalines sloping down toward the coast. Most prominent in the geostrophic velocity field is the equatorward EICC. Its transport north of about 13 degrees N, computed with 1000 dbar as the level of reference, varies between 2.6 and 7.1 x 10 sup(6) m sup(3) s sup(-1) ; just south of this latitude, a northwestward flow from offshore recurveys and merges with the coastal current. At the southern end of the region surveyed, the transport is 7.7 x 10 sup(6) m sup(3) s sup(-1) . Recent model studies lead us to conclude that the EICC during the northeast monsoon is driven by winds along the east coast of India and Ekman pumping in the interior bay. In the south, Ekman pumping over the southwestern bay is responsible for the northwestward flow that merges with the EICC
 
Date 2009-01-21T11:16:56Z
2009-01-21T11:16:56Z
1996
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Journal of Geophysical Research (C: Oceans), Vol.101; 14011-14025p.
http://drs.nio.org/drs/handle/2264/2259
 
Language en
 
Rights Copyright [1996]. All efforts have been made to respect the copyright to the best of our knowledge. Inadvertent omissions, if brought to our notice, stand for correction and withdrawal of document from this repository.
 
Publisher American Geophysical Union