News Excerpt:
According to scientists at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), there is a significant improvement in the upper ocean salinity, temperature, and currents.
Key highlights of the study:
- The Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the Maldives Islands influence Indian Ocean currents, significantly altering their direction and speed.
- These deep-swirling patterns in the ocean depths were found to be opposite to the surface currents.
- Oceans play a critical role in weather, climate prediction, and the maritime industry.
- Due to the vast economic benefits, it is essential to accurately forecast specific oceanographic parameters such as currents, temperature, and salinity of surface and subsurface on different time scales.
- Overall, the study- ‘Impact of bathymetry on Indian Ocean circulation in a nested regional ocean model’, has highlighted the importance of bathymetry in advancing the understanding of ocean dynamics to improve the ocean state forecast, weather, and climate forecast over the Indian rim countries and subcontinent.
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What is Bathymetry?
- Bathymetry is the study of the "beds" or "floors" of water bodies, including the ocean, rivers, streams, and lakes.
- The term "bathymetry" originally referred to the ocean's depth relative to sea level, although it has come to mean “submarine topography,” or the depths and shapes of underwater terrain.
- In the same way topographic maps represent the three-dimensional features (or relief) of overland terrain, bathymetric maps illustrate the underwater land.
- Variations in sea-floor relief may be depicted by colour and contour lines called depth contours or isobaths.
- Bathymetry is the foundation of the hydrography science, which measures a water body's physical features.
- Hydrography includes not only bathymetry but also the shape and features of the shoreline, the characteristics of tides, currents, and waves, as well as the physical and chemical properties of the water itself.
- Bathymetric data is used for a range of purposes including -
- charting and ship navigation
- fisheries management
- environmental management, including establishing baseline data to support environmental monitoring
- determination of maritime boundaries
- alternative energy assessments (i.e. to support offshore wind and wave energy assessments)
- research into coastal processes and ocean currents, for example, tsunami modelling
- assessment of environmental considerations for marine geology resource management, including the identification of geohazards, such as underwater landslides.
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