| Session Details | |
| Section | OS - Ocean Sciences |
| Session Title | Variability And Connections Of Ocean Boundary Current Systems In The Indo-pacific Ocean And Their Climatic Impacts |
| Main Convener | Prof. Fan Wang (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) |
| Co-convener(s) | Dr. Susan Wijffels (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia) Dr. Ming Feng (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia) Dr. Janet Sprintall (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, United States) Dr. Sophie Cravatte (Institute for Development Research (IDR), France) |
| Session Description | Variability of the West Pacific-East Indian warm pool plays a vital role in the occurrences of ENSO events and in the genesis of climate disasters. Strong Ocean Boundary Currents (OBCs) systems, including the tropical Pacific western boundary currents (WBCs) and Indian eastern boundary currents (EBCs), and the Indonesia Throughflow (ITF) in between, play a key role in the heat, mass and fresh water budget of the warm pool. The OBCs are also the main route forextra-tropical decadal variability to influence the tropical region, and their variability is important for understanding the ENSO and its decadal modulation. Taking advantage of the substantive investment over the past decade in observations, process studies, and the associated modeling, the understandings of the Pacific WBCs, the Indian EBCs, and the ITF, as well as their effects on the warm pool and ENSO dynamics have been much improved. This session will offer a forum to bring together fundamental advances in our knowledge of variability and connections of OBC systems in the Indo-Pacific Ocean and their collective impacts on warm pool variability. The session will also seek the scientific and logistical coordination in the observations to ensure that the sum is greater than the total of these individual efforts. |