2014/10/06 by Mathew Koll Roxy, Kapoor Ritika, Pascal Terray +1 · 521 citations
Environmental Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Climate variability and models #Oceanographic and Atmospheric Processes #Marine and coastal ecosystems #Climatology #Sea surface temperature #Teleconnection #Effects of global warming on oceans #Environmental science #Global warming #Ocean heat content #Monsoon #Oceanography #Indian Ocean Dipole #Ocean current #Monsoon of South Asia #Climate change #Subtropical Indian Ocean Dipole #Western Hemisphere Warm Pool #El Niño Southern Oscillation #Geology
paper · open access · doi:10.1175/jcli-d-14-00471.1
published in Journal of Climate 27(22), 8501-8509 (American Meteorological Society)
openalex publication_date 2014/10/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract Recent studies have pointed out an increased warming over the Indian Ocean warm pool (the central-eastern Indian Ocean characterized by sea surface temperatures greater than 28.0°C) during the past half-century, although the reasons behind this monotonous warming are still debated. The results here reveal a larger picture—namely, that the western tropical Indian Ocean has been warming for more than a century, at a rate faster than any other region of the tropical oceans, and turns out to be the largest contributor to the overall trend in the global mean sea surface temperature (SST). During 1901–2012, while the Indian Ocean warm pool went through an increase of 0.7°C, the western Indian Ocean experienced anomalous warming of 1.2°C in summer SSTs. The warming of the generally cool western Indian Ocean against the rest of the tropical warm pool region alters the zonal SST gradients, and has the potential to change the Asian monsoon circulation and rainfall, as well as alter the marine food webs in this biologically productive region. The current study using observations and global coupled ocean–atmosphere model simulations gives compelling evidence that, besides direct contribution from greenhouse warming, the long-term warming trend over the western Indian Ocean during summer is highly dependent on the asymmetry in the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) teleconnection, and the positive SST skewness associated with ENSO during recent decades.