| Session Details | |
| Section | OS - Ocean Sciences |
| Session Title | Ocean Circulation and Air-sea Interaction Over the Maritime Continent and Surrounding Waters |
| Main Convener | Dr. Lei Zhou (Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China) |
| Co-convener(s) | Dr. Dongxiao Wang (South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Dr. R. Dwi Susanto (University of Maryland, United States) Dr. Wen Zhou (City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR) |
| Session Description | Due to the complex land-sea distribution, the maritime continent has a special ocean circulation system and pronounced ocean-atmosphere interactions at various timescales. It plays an important role in the global and regional weather/climate. The diurnal cycle is critical for the convection and precipitation over the maritime continent, but it can hardly be captured by models. At the intraseasonal timescales, the maritime continent is the "barrier" for the Madden-Julian Oscillation and the mechanism is still unclear. In addition, the variabilities associated with the ITCZ shifts and Walker circulation over the maritime continent are closely related to the Asian-Australian monsoons and the dominant interannual climate modes such as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). The Indonesian throughflow is the only channel in the low latitudes that connects two oceans and largely controls the energy distribution associated with the meridional overturning circulation (MOC). Moreover, the maritime continent has close interactions with the processes in the western Pacific, the eastern Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea, which make it a pivot region in the Indo-Pacific region. Overall, this session focuses on recent progress in physical mechanisms/process understandings of the ocean circulation and multi-scale ocean-atmosphere interactions over the maritime continent and surrounding waters. Theoretical analysis, observation diagnostics, modelling, and all studies on related topics are welcome. |