Cyclone Phailin enhanced the productivity following its passage: Evidence from satellite data

Over the past decade (2002–2013) the Bay of Bengal has experienced 12 cyclones and 27 tropical storms. The recent one was the cyclone Phailin which was equivalent to a category-5 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale(SSHWS). The cyclonic storm developed over the north of Andaman and Nicobar Islands on 9 October 2013. Subsequen tly,it propagated towards north-northwest and made a landfall at the Gopalpur coast of south Odisha on 12 October

Ship-mounted real-time surface observational system on board Indian vessels for validation and refinement of model forcing fields

A network of ship-mounted real-time Automatic Weather Stations integrated with Indian geosynchronous satellites Indian National Satellites (INSATs) 3A and 3C, named Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services Real-Time Automatic Weather Stations (I-RAWS), is established. The purpose of I-RAWS is to measure the surface meteorological-ocean parameters and transmit the data in real time in order to validate and refine the forcing parameters (obtained from different meteorological agencies) of the Indian Ocean Forecasting System (INDOFOS). Preliminary validation and intercomparison of analyzed products obtained from the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts using the data collected from I-RAWS were carried out. This I-RAWS was mounted on board oceanographic research vessel Sagar Nidhi during a cruise across three oceanic regimes, namely, the tropical Indian Ocean, the extratropical Indian Ocean, and the Southern Ocean. The results obtained from such a validation and intercomparison, and its implications with special reference to the usage of atmospheric model data for forcing ocean model, are discussed in detail. It is noticed that the performance of analysis products from both atmospheric models is similar and good; however, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts air temperature over the extratropical Indian Ocean and wind speed in the Southern Ocean are marginally better