ARCHER2 Calendar September 2023

One year in the southwestern Indian Ocean

Noam Vogt-Vincent, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford

* * * Winning Video, ARCHER2 Image and Video Competition 2022 * * *

This video shows one year of sea-surface temperatures from WINDS-C, a 1/50° (c. 2km) resolution ocean model that covers almost all coral reefs in the southwestern Indian Ocean (SWIO). We have used this model (run on ARCHER2) to assess coral reef connectivity through larval dispersal on multi-decadal timescales across the SWIO. This video was made by rendering sea-surface temperature as a shaded height-map (as well as a traditional colourmap), which does a great job of emphasising flow across scales from 10s - 1000km. In this video, you can clearly see the major features of ocean circulation in the SWIO, such as the Southern Equatorial Current transporting water westwards towards Madagascar, which then intensifies into the rapid North Madagascar Current (flowing towards East Africa and shedding many eddies) and East Africa Coastal Current, which races northwards along the East African coast.

This image was published on the September page of the ARCHER2 2023 printed calendar.