EGU21-7230
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-7230
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Determination of Absorption Lengths using PWP Model in the Bay of Bengal

Hitesh Gupta and Sourav Sil
Hitesh Gupta and Sourav Sil
  • Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Bhubaneswar, School of Earth, Ocean and Climate Sciences, India (hg13@iitbbs.ac.in)

In this study, we model the upper layers of the Bay of Bengal, which is rather a unique water body in terms of its dynamics which is controlled by the advection of large fresh water from the adjoining rivers as well monsoonal precipitation thus changing the turbulent mixing in the upper layers. The fresh water influx from rivers and precipitation, leads to low saline water overlying hypersaline water, creates a strong stratification due to which turbulent mixing is inhibited. The resulting halocline inhibits the wind driven mixing of the upper layers thus changing or affecting the optical characteristics of the water body. With the exception of shortwave insolation, the air – sea heat exchange occurs at the sea surface and is vertically redistributed by mixing and advection. The present study focuses on generating these optical or absorption lengths (e-folding depths) at different locations in the Bay of Bengal as a function of time itself, showing absorption length changes with both the space and the time, using the PWP – 1D model for which data is obtained from RAMA Buoys located along 900E in the Bay of Bengal. The shortwave and longwave absorption length is directly related to heating up of the upper layers of the ocean and thus change its state and dynamics. Heating of the upper oceanic layers are also related to increase in SST as well as the Ocean Heat content of the ocean leading to changes in various systems like monsoon, cyclones, fluxes, etc. These absorption lengths are related to the Mixed layer heat budget directly but it may also be related to the salt budget of the Bay too. The model results highlight that the absorption length affects the SST as well as the temperature of the upper layers and also that the absorption length changes from one season to another season done using the data of - RAMA Buoy located at 900E and 150N (northern Bay of Bengal) and 900E and 120N as well as data from INCOIS tropflux. The study encourages to use the generated results for the Mixed layer heat budget analysis, or for the modelling purpose, etc.

 

Keywords - Bay of Bengal, Mixing in the upper layers, Absorption lengths, extinction lengths, Penetration depths, E-folding depth, RAMA buoy, Solar insolation, Water type and quality, Sea surface temperature, PWP – 1D model, Seasonality.

How to cite: Gupta, H. and Sil, S.: Determination of Absorption Lengths using PWP Model in the Bay of Bengal, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-7230, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-7230, 2021.