| Session Description |
The exchange from the Pacific Ocean into the Indian Ocean via the Indonesian Seas plays a critical role as the only low latitude pathway for the redistribution of heat and freshwater anomalies as part of the global overturning circulation. The North and South Pacific waters that enter the Indonesian seas are transformed through the strong air-sea flux forcing and enhanced tidal mixing within the interior seas into the cooler, fresher Indonesian water mass profile observed to transit the tropical Indian Ocean. This Indonesian Throughflow transport is modulated by local and remote wind and buoyancy forcing associated with the regional monsoons, intraseasonal Madden-Jullian Oscillations, and climate variability related to ENSO and IOD phenomena on interannual and longer time scales. In turn, the variability of the heat and freshwater transported through the Indonesian seas impacts the weather and climate not only of Indonesia, but also that of Australia and the entire Southeast Asian region. In this session, we seek contributions that encompass circulation and mixing and their variability as determined through recent theory, observations, and modelling efforts across the Indonesian region from the western Pacific inflow to the eastern Indian outflow. |
