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Forcing mechanisms of the Bay of Bengal circulation

DRS at CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography

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Title Forcing mechanisms of the Bay of Bengal circulation
 
Creator Vinayachandran, P.N.
Shetye, S.R.
Sengupta, D.
Gadgil, S.
 
Subject ocean circulation
forces (mechanics)
climatology
wind stress
monsoons
models
 
Description A state-of-the-art ocean general circulation model, set up for the North Indian Ocean and driven by climatological wind stress simulates most of the observed features of the near-surface circulation of the Bay of Bengal. The prominent features of the annual cycle are an anticyclonic gyre with a poleward East India Coastal Current (EICC) during February-May, and an equatorward EICC during October-December. During the summer monsoon, the coastal current flows poleward in the south and equatorward in the north. To identify the principal mechanisms governing this cycle, we carried out experiments with modified winds. When spatially uniform wind stress was applied only over the Bay, the circulation is similar to, but weaker than the observed, and can be linked to two coastal Kelvin wave pulses which originate along the eastern boundary of the Bay during the summer and winter monsoons. When the Bay is forced with observed winds, the wind stress curl strengthens the poleward EICC during February-May and the equatorward EICC during October-December. The principal contribution of equatorial winds is to generate the equatorward coastal current during the summer monsoon off the east coast of India.
 
Date 2009-01-21T11:25:27Z
2009-01-21T11:25:27Z
1996
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Current Science, Vol.71; 753-763p.
http://drs.nio.org/drs/handle/2264/2271
 
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 Current Science Association, Bangalore, India