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Salinity measurements collected by fishermen reveal a ``River in the Sea`` flowing along the eastern coast of India

DRS at CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography

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Title Salinity measurements collected by fishermen reveal a ``River in the Sea`` flowing along the eastern coast of India
 
Creator Chaitanya, A.V.S.
Lengaigne, M.
Vialard, J.
Gopalakrishna, V.V.
Durand, F.
KranthiKumar, C.
Amritash, S.
Suneel, V.
Papa, F.
Ravichandran, M.
 
Subject OCEANOGRAPHY AND LIMNOLOGY
CHEMISTRY AND BIOGEOCHEMISTRY
OCEANOGRAPHY AND LIMNOLOGY
METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATOLOGY
OCEANOGRAPHY AND LIMNOLOGY
 
Description Being the only tropical ocean bounded by a continent to the north, the Indian Ocean is home to the most powerful monsoon system on Earth. Monsoonal rains and winds induce huge river discharges and strong coastal currents in the northern Bay of Bengal. To date, the paucity of salinity data has prevented a thorough description of the spreading of this freshwater into the bay. The potential impact of the salinity on cyclones and regional climate in the Bay of Bengal is, however, a strong incentive for a better description of the water cycle in this region. Since May 2005, the National Institute of Oceanography conducts a program in which fishermen collect seawater samples in knee-deep water at eight stations along the Indian coastline every 5 days. Comparison with open-ocean samples shows that this cost-effective sampling strategy is representative of offshore salinity evolution. This new dataset reveals a salinity drop exceeding 10 g kg-1 in the northern part of the bay at the end of the summer monsoon. This freshening signal propagates southward in a narrow (~100 km wide) strip along the eastern coast of India, and reaches its southern tip after 2.5 months. Satellite-derived alongshore-current data shows that the southward propagation of this “river in the sea” is consistent with transport by seasonal coastal currents, while other processes are responsible for the ensuing erosion of this coastal freshening. This simple procedure of coastal seawater samples collection could further be used to monitor phytoplankton concentration, bacterial content, and isotopic composition of seawater along the Indian coastline
 
Date 2017-09-27T13:06:01Z
2017-09-27T13:06:01Z
2014
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, vol.95(2); 2014; 1897-1908
http://drs.nio.org/drs/handle/2264/5159
 
Language en
 
Rights Copyright [2014]. 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 Meteorological Society