The pathway of intraseasonal wave energy in the tropical Indian Ocean as identified by a seamless diagnostic scheme

Abstract

This study makes a first attempt to apply the diagnostic scheme of Aiki et al. (2017) to the output of an ocean general circulation model (OGCM), in order to investigate the basin-wide pathway of equatorial and mid-latitude wave energy associated with intraseasonal variability in the Indian Ocean. The vertical mode decomposition shows that 90-day variability of the second baroclinic mode is dominant in a realistic OGCM experiment. For 90-day equatorial Kelvin wave (KW) and Rossby wave (RW), energy input by wind stress appears in the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean that is then transferred eastward by KWs along the eastern equatorial waveguide (while westward as RW off equator). For 30-day Mixed-Rossby Gravity waves (MRG), wave energy is transferred eastward while wave phase propagates westward that is consistent with the dispersion relationship of low-frequency MRG. The new diagnostic scheme is able to show, particularly for 30-day MRG, eastward energy fluxes along the equatorial waveguide, while the other schemes in previous studies (e.g. pressure flux, quasi-geostrophic flux) cannot show the direction of the group velocity of equatorial waves.