Hyderabad-based Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) has upgraded its system for gathering information on the health of the Indian Ocean. The upgraded version of the Regional Analysis of Indian Ocean, a data assimilation system developed in INCOIS, has been incorporated with the Sea surface height anomaly (SSHA). Compared to the previous version which used only salinity and sea surface temperature, this upgraded version factors in sea surface height. The system has been under development since 2023 and was implemented in recent months. The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), the Indian counterpart of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the Pacific Ocean, is a significant ocean phenomenon that affects India's weather systems. The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is in its neutral phase, but it is expected to turn positive later in the monsoon season. When this shift occurs, the IOD, combined with other favourable factors, is expected to increase rainfall in the country from August onwards. In the new system, for running ocean models, observations are taken at the ocean's surface and below the water at depths ranging from 3 metres to 2,000 metres, depending on the requirement. As a result, the ocean current analysis from the additional information obtained has improved the ocean current analysis. "There has been an improvement in temperature and salinity structure and hence improvement obtained in the geostrophic circulation of the ocean model. The addition of sea surface height has improved the quality of ocean circulation parameters like ocean currents and temperature predicted by the numerical model," an INCOIS official said.
