The Indian Ocean has been recognized to play important roles in regional and global climate systems, material circulations, ecosystems, and their variability. They are often linked with biophysical phenomena that span a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, including, for example, diurnal cycling, intraseasonal disturbances, seasonal variations, interannual variations, and decadal to multi-decadal variations as well as secular trends under the global warming stress. In situ and remotely-sensed physical and biogeochemical observations using the Indian Ocean Observing System-2 (IndOOS-2) and other means are now accumulating high quality data, and research efforts with numerical models and analyses of comprehensive datasets are also being conducted under International Indian Ocean Expedition-2 (IIOE-2) and the Eastern/Western Indian Ocean Upwelling Research Initiative (EIOURI/WIOURI). To advance our understanding of such Indian Ocean phenomena, both disciplinary and interdisciplinary studies are essential; the former for better understanding of mechanisms and the latter for elucidating linkages between the physical and biogeochemical/ecological research realms.
The objective of this session is to share our knowledge on, and to advance our understanding of, all facets of Indian Ocean variability. We invite papers on physical, biogeochemical and ecological aspects of the variability, as well as those related to atmosphere-ocean interactions, over the full spectrum of temporal and spatial scales. Discussions to facilitate mutual interactions among different research communities would also be expected and encouraged.