Equatorial circulation in the western Indian Ocean during onset of the 2018 summer monsoon and links to the Bay of Bengal

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 47(10), (2020): e2020GL087215, doi:10.1029/2020GL087215.Cross‐equator transects occupied by an underwater glider and a research vessel in the western Indian Ocean captured the evolution of equatorial circulation during onset of the boreal summer monsoon in 2018. At the end of the winter monsoon in March, surface currents were westward, while the equatorial undercurrent carried salty Arabian Sea High‐Salinity Water eastward. As winds transitioned from westward to eastward during April, an eastward near‐surface Wyrtki Jet developed, while the equatorial undercurrent weakened, vanishing by May. A first‐mode baroclinic Kelvin wave propagated through the survey region after westward winds relaxed. However, the vertical structure of the evolving circulation was inconsistent with the first baroclinic mode, suggesting the influence of higher modes in setting observed vertical structure. The strong equatorial undercurrent at the end of the winter monsoon allowed high‐salinity waters from the western equatorial Indian Ocean to reach the southern Bay of Bengal in summer 2018.This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research as part of the NASCar DRI under Grant N000141512632 and as part of the MISO‐BOB DRI under Grant N000141712968