The shallow wind driven overturning cell in the Indian Ocean

In the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, subtropical shallow overturning cells have been observed on both side of the equator. Equivalent cells exist in the Indian Ocean. But they must be quite different because of the asymmetry of the Indian Basin and the extreme seasonal variations. Therefore, we investigate here the detailed picture and mechanism of these surface cells.

The subtropical cells play an important role in the mean circulation of all three tropical oceans (Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Ocean), and may play an important role in climate variations.

The objective of this training period is to picture the subtropical, or cross equatorial cells in the Indian Ocean and to visualize in three dimensions the pathways of those cells.

To this end, we used as dataset output from a primitive equation numerical model of the global ocean. We applied a particle tracking algorithm to the model’s velocity field.

In the first part, we will introduce some useful concepts to understand the problem. Then, we will describe the methodology of this study, and finally, we will present our results and discuss them.