The seasonal reversal of monsoon winds and concurrent ocean currents, relatively deep thermocline along the equator due to the lack of steady easterlies, low-latitude connection to the neighboring Pacific and a lack of northward heat export due to the position of the Asian continent make the Indian Ocean unique among the other tropical ocean basins. These characteristics shape the Indian Ocean’s very dynamic intraseasonal, seasonal, and interannual variability, as well as its air-sea interactions. They also make the basin and its surrounding regions, which are home to a third of the global population, particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic climate change, and robust warming and trends in heat and freshwater fluxes have been observed in recent decades. Advances have recently been made in our understanding of the Indian Ocean’s circulation, interactions with adjacent ocean basins, and its role in regional and global climate. Nonetheless, significant gaps remain in understanding, observing, modeling, and predicting Indian Ocean variability and change across a range of timescales.

This session invites contributions based on observations, modelling, theory, and palaeo proxy reconstructions in the Indian Ocean that focus on understanding and predicting the links between Indian Ocean variability and monsoon systems on (intra)seasonal to interannual timescales, interactions and exchanges between the Indian Ocean and other ocean basins, decadal variability and its prediction, response to climate change, extreme events, as well as interactions between physical, biogeochemical, and ecological processes. Contributions are also sought that address research on the Indian Ocean grand challenges, as formulated by the Climate and Ocean: Variability, Predictability, and Change (CLIVAR), the Sustained Indian Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (SIBER), and the International Indian Ocean Expedition 2 (IIOE-2) programs.