Search

Marine heatwave (MHW) is an extreme phenomenon of warm sea surface temperature anomaly that has a destructive impact on the marine ecosystem and organisms. This phenomenon increases every year in duration, frequency, and area due to the global warming. Almost all of the world's oceans have experienced MHW, including in the seas of the southern Java-Nusa Tenggara. The lack of detailed research in this area motivated us to analyze MHW drivers. MHW was identified with the 99th percentile method and duration of = 5 days as a threshold by using blended product of SST data. In 2013, an MHW event was identified in the seas of the southern Java-Nusa Tenggara. This MHW lasts for 37 days, from 8 June to 14 July. The maximum (mean) intensity of sea surface temperature anomaly reaches 2.60°C (1.83°C) above climatology with an average area of 36.53 × 104 km². Locally, we found that probably the positive downward shortwave radiation affected this anomaly. Furthermore, a remote process of the propagation of downwelling Kelvin wave during negative Indian Ocean Dipole may also affect this anomaly. The strong westerly wind along the equatorial Indian ocean forms downwelling Kelvin wave that propagates to the southern Java-Nusa Tenggara increasing SST in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The previous studies of upwelling within the Indonesian seas only focused on the Southeast Monsoon (SEM) season. The western coast of Sumatra Island; the southern coast of Java Island, Sunda Islands, and Sulawesi Island; the Banda Sea, the Maluku Sea, and the Arafura Sea are well-known SEM upwelling areas. However, the upwelling events during Northwest monsoon (NWM) have never been investigated. The investigation of NWM upwelling is challenging due to the broad cloud coverage, limiting the observation of infrared and visible sensors of the satellites. This study used the blended products of the satellite-based sea surface temperature (SST), chlorophyll-a (chl-a), sea level anomaly (SLA), surface wind, and rainfall to identify the NWM upwelling occurrences. Remote sensing reflectances 443 nm and 555 nm were also used to examine the influence of suspended sediment and organic matter which may bias the chl-a concentration. Along the northern coast of the Lesser Sunda Islands, the north coast of Papua Island and the Malacca Strait are the areas of NWM upwelling as denoted by the positive anomaly of chl-a, the negative anomaly of SST, and the negative anomaly of SLA. Focusing on the area along the northern coast of the Lesser Sunda Islands, the NWM upwelling is generated by offshore Ekman Mass Transport that reduces SST and increases chl-a. From 2010 onwards, El Niňo Southern Oscillation has a more consistent effect on the NWM upwelling than Indian Ocean Dipole. El Niňo (La Niňa) tends to weaken (strengthen) upwelling. The magnitude of NWM upwelling is weaker than SEM upwelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]