How circulation and mixing in the North Indian Ocean are influenced by monsoon?
Physical processes in the ocean change with seasons in the upper 1000 m or so. The circulation in the upper few 100 m is largely driven by changes in winds whereas vertical mixing in the ocean is by changes in density. The latter is known as thermohaline circulation. Coastal currents become more significant during monsoons. In summer monsoon West India Coastal Current (WICC, Shetye, 1998) flows southward and joins the eastward flowing Summer Monsoon Current (SMC), which carries high salinity waters into the Bay of Bengal (Shankar et al., 2002). The reverse occurs in winter as the low saline surface water flows southward in the Bay of Bengal and cover large parts of the southern Arabian Sea. The winter coastal current flowing along India and Sri Lanka in the Bay of Bengal is known as East India Coastal Current (EICC, Shetye et al., 1996) the direction of which changes with season (Shankar et al., 2002). Vertical mixing between surface and subsurface waters is prominent in the Arabian Se
