{"id":36105,"date":"2023-06-28T08:53:32","date_gmt":"2023-06-28T03:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=36105"},"modified":"2025-04-21T15:15:34","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T09:45:34","slug":"indian-ocean-dipole-and-its-potential-to-limit-el-nino-effects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/indian-ocean-dipole-and-its-potential-to-limit-el-nino-effects\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian Ocean Dipole and its Potential to Limit EL Nino Effects"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is ENSO (El Nino and Southern Oscillation)?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD)?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Does IOD Impact Southwest Monsoon?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>With the El Nino phenomenon almost certain to affect the Indian monsoon this year, high hopes are pinned on the development of a positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and its ability to counterbalance the El Nino effect.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is ENSO (El Nino and Southern Oscillation)?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/6_0TLkA3tpQ46MOmb4gOr4hVL-QZUWX7ysFFKZCAeDeEGb14n-8bX2OhJYaiFQtzzMI5zQZainO1m1bGrenfBfVnF9eNLRbWLiL4H32EuA0WQlJi1V0MYxx5_S59oyWr05ZUQv4KSJx2\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Image Caption: ENSO<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>ENSO is one of the most important climate phenomena on earth due to its <u>ability to change the global atmospheric circulation<\/u>, which in turn, influences temperature and precipitation across the globe.<\/li>\n<li>Though ENSO is a single climate phenomenon, it has three states, or phases, it can be in:\n<ul>\n<li><strong>El Nino:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>A warming of the ocean surface, or above-average sea surface temperatures (SST), in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.<\/li>\n<li>It is <u>associated with lower than normal monsoon rainfall in India<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>La Nina:<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>A cooling of the ocean surface, or below-average SSTs, in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.<\/li>\n<li>It is <u>associated with a comparatively better monsoon rainfall in India<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Neutral:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Neither El Nino nor La Nina.<\/li>\n<li>Often tropical Pacific SSTs are generally close to average.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD)?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/a3JaTPbKQdyq9hWNdMEtUei0JZ2hDcljsYRuTmj2r1wmzyC5ZU-R2hfE2MtZRDZInJ3_0TnKqEx6lJkKiDQ8csMdr4dv3XdG8VNG0nLjzTSd4hjw8lmrvPHo1ogr0H3lEo6LhrapxNNa\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Image Caption: Indian Ocean Dipole<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is defined by the <u>difference in sea surface temperature between two areas (or poles, hence a dipole) \u2013 a western pole in the Arabian Sea (western Indian Ocean) and an eastern pole in the eastern Indian Ocean south of Indonesia<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>In scientific terms, the IOD is a coupled ocean and atmosphere phenomenon, similar to ENSO but in the equatorial Indian Ocean.<\/li>\n<li>A \u2018<strong>positive IOD<\/strong>\u2019 \u2014 or simply \u2018IOD\u2019 \u2014 is associated with cooler than normal sea-surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean and warmer than normal sea-surface temperatures in the western tropical Indian Ocean.<\/li>\n<li>The opposite phenomenon is called a \u2018<strong>negative IOD<\/strong>\u2019, and is characterised by warmer than normal SSTs in the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean and cooler than normal SSTs in the western tropical Indian Ocean.<\/li>\n<li>The IOD was identified as an independent system only in 1999.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Does IOD Impact Southwest Monsoon?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>There is no established correlation between Indian summer monsoon rainfall and IOD.<\/li>\n<li>However, studies have shown that a <strong><u>positive IOD year sees more than normal rainfall over central India<\/u><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>With the El Nino phenomenon almost certain to affect the Indian monsoon this year, high hopes are pinned on the development of a positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and its ability to counterbalance the El Nino effect.<\/li>\n<li>A <strong>positive IOD has the potential to offset the impacts of El Nino to a small measure in neighbouring areas<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>It has, at least once in the past (1997), delivered admirably on this potential.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>While the El Nino is already firmly established in the Pacific Ocean this year, the IOD is still in the neutral phase.<\/li>\n<li>All international climate models suggest a positive IOD event may develop in the coming months<\/li>\n<li>The India Meteorological Department (IMD), in its bulletin earlier this month, said <strong>there was an 80% chance of a positive IOD in the coming months<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1)<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>How do we measure the temperature of sea water?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The temperature of seawater is measured using instruments called thermistors. The temperature of seawater can be measured to great accuracy with carefully calibrated modern thermistors &#8211; down to variations of 0.0001\u00b0 C.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What are ocean currents in short answer?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Ocean currents are the continuous, predictable, directional movement of seawater driven by gravity, wind (<strong>Coriolis Effect<\/strong>), and water density. Ocean water moves in two directions: horizontally and vertically. Horizontal movements are referred to as currents, while vertical changes are called upwellings or downwellings.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-climate\/indian-ocean-dipole-what-is-it-how-it-can-limit-el-nino-effects-8689360\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Indian Ocean Dipole: What is it, how it can limit El Nino effects<\/u><\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Indian Ocean Dipole is defined by the difference in sea surface temperature between two areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":36106,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36105","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}