Over the last 50 years significant progress has been made in our ability to describe and model both the oceanic and atmospheric environments of the Indian Ocean and their interactions with the sea floor and coastal regimes. However, our understanding of the major processes of the Indian Ocean is still far from complete and rudimentary in many respects.

The session will provide a platform to highlight recent results of physical, biogeochemical, ecological, geological, coastal and atmospheric studies from the Indian Ocean (including Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, southern Indian Ocean, and marginal seas such as Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Andaman Sea).

Moreover, the session will serve to illustrate some of the key research areas that are relevant to the future research on the grand challenges in the Indian Ocean System. Some of them have been formulated by the Sustained Indian Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (SIBER), Oceans and Climate: Variability, predictability and change (CLIVAR) and the International Indian Ocean Expedition 2 (IIOE-2) initiatives. But others could be developed by contributions to this session.