Scientists to set sail to revive Indian Ocean observations hit by COVID-19

Disruptions in observations and equipment supply chain during the COVID-19 pandemic has left critical gaps in the Indian Ocean marine observation system for storm forecasting and fisheries planning. The U.S. and India are jointly addressing the issue with a scientific voyage to revive the system.

An international team, including scientists from two leading Indian institutions, recently highlighted the pandemic’s disruptive effects in a paper published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS). Meanwhile, in March this year, India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences secretary M. Ravichandran and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) chief Rick Spinrad discussed ways to revive the Indian Ocean Observing System (IndOOS) system. IndOOS involves a suite of in situ observation networks comprising sea surface monitoring arrays, floats, drifting buoys, tide gauges, ship-based systems and satellite observations.

“During the pandemic, critical gaps appeared in the Indian Ocean marine observing system that severely limited our ability to support reliable decision and policymaking. Even now the recovery of the observing system is slow,” said Janet Sprintall, researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, who led the BAMS paper. “Ocean data provide crucial information to improve lead time for tropical cyclone forecasts and therefore guide government agencies on how to respond,” Sprintall told Mongabay-India.

The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) scientists play a key role in the observation system. Two of them, E. Pattabhi Rama Rao and Srinivasa Kumar Tummala, served as co-authors in the BAMS paper. An INCOIS top scientist underscored the significance of its revival. “As the Indian Ocean is more vulnerable to hazards and climate change effects, the impact of optimum and sustained ocean observations is most needed for early warning and climate services. In addition, fast development of the blue economy activities demands fit-to-purpose observations and strategies in the Indian Ocean region, according to the emerging Global Ocean Observation System (GOOS),” Balakrishnan Nair, steering committee member of GOOS/UNESCO and group director of the ocean modelling, applied research and services group at INCOIS, told Mongabay-India.

M. K. Roxy of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, is the third Indian co-author of the paper along with scientists from China, Japan, South Africa, France and the U.S.

A complex network

The main platform for on-site observation in the tropical Indian Ocean is the Research moored Array for African-Asian-Australian Monsoon Analysis and Prediction (RAMA). The RAMA array moorings measure temperature and salinity and share the data over the ARGOS satellite network. RAMA was set up jointly by NOAA and the Ministry of Earth Sciences.

“We want to reactivate RAMA,” Ravichandran said after discussing the matter with the NOAA chief during his visit to Washington D.C. in March. NOAA will provide instrumentation and India will provide 60-90 days of ship-time from July for the work as reported.

“The mooring arrays offer an important backbone for the IndOOS, designed to provide new insights into ocean dynamics and for the investigation of air-sea interaction related to weather and climate events and their predication, including cyclone tracking and marine heat wave events,” the BAMS paper noted.  Earlier studies have reported more intense cyclones in the North Indian Ocean in recent times and more heat waves with implications on disaster risk reduction and livelihood security of coastal communities. Scientists have called for better, localised and timely forecasts in view of the changing storm patterns.

COVID-19, however, disrupted cruises meant for deployment and maintenance of observation equipment. RAMA moored buoys are usually replaced every year because sensors fall out of calibration and batteries run down. As a result, there is now record low reporting and some of the functional platforms are outdated, the BAMS paper noted.

An update is urgently needed for scientists to better understand model representation of the real world so that they can support regional forecasts. The servicing is usually done by research vessels from India, Indonesia and South Korea, the paper added. “However, these research cruises were put on hold for more than two years during the pandemic, with only a single servicing cruise that turned around two buoys in the southwest Indian Ocean in January 2022. As a result, most of the buoys stopped transmitting data and many were lost,” notes the paper.

Global significance

Scientists note that the ocean atmospheric interactions in the Indian Ocean affect global weather and climate variability at different time scales through linked weather and climate patterns called teleconnections. The Indian Ocean is the warmest ocean in the world. The Indo-Pacific Warm Pool in the eastern Indian Ocean stays warm throughout the year, warming and expanding over the past century, influencing global atmospheric circulation and the water cycle. For instance, the expanding warm pool affects Madden Julian Oscillation, a massive disturbance involving clouds, rainfall, winds and pressure that influences rain patterns across the world.

“Marine observations from the Indian Ocean are important to help us monitor and forecast weather and climate in India and other countries,” Sprintall told Mongabay India.

“The key way forward is to build stronger international partnerships, working together on providing ship time and instruments to help us build the marine observing system back up to pre-pandemic levels.”

“I am part of an international group known as the CLIVAR/GOOS Indian Ocean Regional Panel and one of our tasks is to work, with other groups, to make sure that the Indian Ocean marine observing system is working and making measurements like we think it should be,” Sprintall said. She added that she will be part of a joint India-U.S.A. scientific cruise from Chennai out into the Bay of Bengal aimed at improving scientific understanding of the role of the ocean in the onset of the monsoon.

Disruption forewarned

Back in 2020, the UNSECO warned about the disruption that COVID-19 could cause. “COVID-19 threatens to create an ocean data blindspot that could disrupt weather forecasts and hamper our understanding of climate change,” a UNESCO news update warned. Reportedly governments and ocean research agencies recalled nearly all research vessels to home ports with dramatic negative impacts on research.

“COVID had a quick and devastating impact on marine observing systems throughout the global ocean because shipping halted and the supply channel was thrown into disarray. So, it wasn’t surprising that the Indian Ocean observing system was also degraded particularly during that initial period,” Sprintall said. “What was surprising was that it remained degraded for such a long time after the full impact of COVID and when the observing systems in the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean were largely back up and running.”

Lockdowns and transport restrictions have led to the closure of laboratories, discontinuation of experiments, loss of data, fund cuts across the world, scientists have reported. In addition, the potential for scientific innovation was significantly hampered by travel restrictions, and by less face-to-face meetings and research dissemination through conferences and workshops leading to a situation akin to what has been described as a “domino fall”.

Read more: Analysing the history of the Indian Ocean with past cruise records and sediment cores

Banner image: Research Moored Array for African-Asian-Australian Monsoon Analysis and Prediction (RAMA) being deployed to measure temperature and salinity and share the data over the ARGOS satellite network. Photo by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, United States.