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- Title
Effect of Tides on the Indonesian Seas Circulation and Their Role on the Volume, Heat and Salt Transports of the Indonesian Throughflow.
- Authors
Katavouta, Anna; Polton, Jeff A.; Harle, James D.; Holt, Jason T.
- Abstract
The effect of tides on the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) is explored in a regional ocean model of South East Asia. Our model simulations, with and without tidal forcing, reveal that tides drive only a modest increase in the ITF volume, heat and salt transports toward the Indian Ocean. However, tides drive large regional changes in these transports through Lombok Strait, Ombai Strait and the Timor Sea, and regulate the partitioning of the ITF amongst them. The effect of tidal mixing on the salinity and temperature profiles within the Indonesian Seas drives a small decrease in the heat and salt transports toward the Indian Ocean in all three exit passages. In contrast, the tidal residual circulation due to the interaction between the tides and the topography and stratification (including the effects of tidal mixing on the circulation) leads to a large decrease in the transports toward the Indian Ocean through the Lombok and Ombai straits, but a large increase through the Timor Sea. Hence, the small net contribution from tides to the ITF's volume, heat and salt transports is due to a compensation between large, but opposing tidal residual transports at the combined Lombok and Ombai straits and in the Timor Sea. Our results indicate that explicit representation of tides, often missing in Earth system models, is necessary to accurately capture the ITF's pathway and so the tracer transport from the Pacific into the Indian Ocean. Plain Language Summary: As part of the general ocean circulation, water from the Pacific Ocean is transported into the Indian Ocean through the Indonesian Seas. This water enters the Indian Ocean through three exit passages: Lombok Strait, Ombai Strait and the Timor Sea. Here, a model that simulates the ocean conditions and circulation in South East Asia is used to explore the role of tides on this transport of water from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean. We found that although tides have a small influence on the total amount of water transferred from the Indonesian Seas into the Indian Ocean, they drive large changes in the relative amount of water that exits through either the Lombok Strait, Ombai Strait or the Timor Sea. Specifically, the interaction between the tides, the topography and the water's vertical density structure within the Indonesian Seas causes tidally‐induced ocean currents that force more water to exit through the Timor Sea, at the expense of less water exiting through the Lombok and Ombai straits. We conclude that the tides regulate the pathway of water exiting into the Indian Ocean through the Indonesian Seas and so may affect the transport of physical, biogeochemical and pollution‐related materials in this region. Key Points: Currents due to the tides' interaction with topography and stratification drive a modest increase in the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) transportsTidal residual circulation drives large but compensatory transports in the three main ITF exit passagesTides regulate the partitioning of the ITF amongst its three main exit passages into the Indian Ocean
- Subjects
SOUTHEAST Asia; STRAITS; OCEAN currents; TIDAL power; OFFSHORE sailing; WATER transfer; RIVER channels; OCEAN circulation
- Publication
Journal of Geophysical Research. Oceans, 2022, Vol 127, Issue 8, p1
- ISSN
2169-9275
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1029/2022JC018524