Venugopal, T., Ali, M. M., Bourassa, M. A., Zheng, Y., Goni, G. J., Foltz, G. R., et al. (2018). Statistical Evidence for the Role of Southwestern Indian Ocean Heat Content in the Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall. Sci Rep , 8 (1), 12092.
Abstract: This study examines the benefit of using Ocean Mean Temperature (OMT) to aid in the prediction of the sign of Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall (ISMR) anomalies. This is a statistical examination, rather than a process study. The thermal energy needed for maintaining and intensifying hurricanes and monsoons comes from the upper ocean, not just from the thin layer represented by sea surface temperature (SST) alone. Here, we show that the southwestern Indian OMT down to the depth of the 26 degrees C isotherm during January-March is a better qualitative predictor of the ISMR than SST. The success rate in predicting above- or below-average ISMR is 80% for OMT compared to 60% for SST. Other January-March mean climate indices (e.g., NINO3.4, Indian Ocean Dipole Mode Index, El Nino Southern Oscillation Modoki Index) have less predictability (52%, 48%, and 56%, respectively) than OMT percentage deviation (PD) (80%). Thus, OMT PD in the southwestern Indian Ocean provides a better qualitative prediction of ISMR by the end of March and indicates whether the ISMR will be above or below the climatological mean value.
Bourassa, M. A., Smith, S. R., & O'Brien, J. J. (2002). Assimilation of scatterometer and in situ winds for regularly gridded products. In 6th Symposium on Integrated Observing Systems (pp. 161–165).
Smith, S. R., Bourassa, M. A., Legler, D. M., & O'Brien, J. J. (2001). Value of quality evaluated, high-temporal resolution marine meteorology observations. In Symposium on Climate Variability, the Oceans and Societal Impacts (pp. 148–153).
Verzone, K. V., Bourassa, M. A., Cocke, S. D., & LaRow, T. E. (2001). Double ensemble estimates of precipitation in the southeastern United States for extreme ENSO events. In Symposium on Climate Variability, the Oceans and Societal Impacts (pp. 167–168).
Bourassa, M. A., Legler, D. M., O'Brien, J. J., Stricherz, J. N., & Whalley, J. (1998). High temporal and spatial resolution animations of winds observed with the NSCAT scatterometer. In 14th International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology at 78th AMS Annual Meeting (pp. 556–559).
Bourassa, M. A. (1998). Interaction between atmospheric stability and mean wave characteristics. In 9th Conference on Interaction of the Sea and Atmosphere at the 78th American-Meteorogical-Society Annual Meeting (pp. 24–27).
Legler, D. M., Bourassa, M. A., Rao, A. D., & O'Brien, J. J. (1998). NSCAT surface wind fields using optimally tuned direct minimization techniques. In 9th Conference on Interaction of the Sea and Atmosphere at the 78th American-Meteorogical-Society Annual Meeting (pp. 32–35).
Bourassa, M. A., Legler, D. M., & O'Brien, J. J. (1997). The use of significant wave height to improve the accuracy of wind derived stress and wave characteristics. 12th Symposium on Boundary Layers and Turbulence , , 291–292.
Bourassa, M. A. (2009). The future of wind measurements from space. Space News , (Nov. 23), 2.
Bourassa, M. A., & Hughes, P. J. (2009). Impacts of High Resolution SST Fields on Objective Analyses of Wind Fields, and Practical Constraints Related to Sampling. In International GHRSST User Symposium, GHRSST (2).