Seasonal variability of eddy kinetic energy in southeastern Arabian Sea

Eddy kinetic energy (EKE) is a measure of temporal and spatial variability of ocean mesoscale eddies . This study elucidates the key factors that determine the spatial distribution and seasonality of mesoscale eddies of the south-eastern Arabian sea (SEAS) using satellite observational data from Copernicus Marine service data centre, during the time period 1993-2016. In general eddy kinetic energy is found to higher during winter. The higher EKE throughout the winter were found to be due to the barotropic instability of the Winter Monsoon Current . This is owing to current’s barotropic instability due to wind stress curl, resulting in the conversion of mean kinetic energy to eddy kinetic energy. The ESA OC-CCI data were used to study the influence of EKE on the primary productivity using linear regression and correlation analysis. A significant positive correlation between EKE and chlorophyll-a concentration during winter monsoon indicates the impact of EKE on the distribution of surface chlorophyll-a concentration over the SEAS during winter monsoon.