The Indonesian sea is the only low-latitude pathway connecting two tropical oceans, which plays an important role in the coupled ocean-atmosphere mode in the Indo-Pacific sector. A small change in the sea surface temperature (SST) in the Indonesian sea has a significant influence on the precipitation and air-sea heat flux. During the past 33 years, the SST in the Indonesian sea has indicated a warming trend on the average of 0.19 ± 0.04 decade−1, which is larger than global SST warming trend. Moreover, the warming trend indicates seasonal variations, in which maximum trend occurred during boreal summer season. Investigation on the potential driver for this warming trend, namely, the net surface heat flux, resulted in an opposite trend (cooling trend), while the Ekman pumping and the wind mixing only play a minor role on the SST warming. Here, we proposed the upper layer process associated with an increasing trend in precipitation and decreasing trend in mixed layer depth (MLD) for the SST warming within the Indonesian seas. Shoaling of MLD gives a favorable condition for the surface heat flux to warm the surface ocean. However, shoaling of MLD could not solely explain the total SST warming within the Indonesian seas. The seasonal dependence in the warming trend, highest during boreal summer, was significantly related to the Indo-Pacific climate modes, namely the negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and La Niña events. Higher warming trend observed in the south of Makassar Strait and in the eastern Indonesian seas, in the vicinity of the Maluku Sea and the northeastern part of the Banda Sea, was significantly associated with the La Niña event. Meanwhile, strong warming trend observed in the Karimata Strait and Java Sea, and in the Flores Sea south of Sulawesi Island seems to be enhanced by the negative IOD event. Our rough quantitative estimate of the possible mechanism leading to the SST warming suggests that other mechanism might be at work in warming the SST within the Indonesian seas. Horizontal heat advection associated with an increasing trend of the heat transport from the Pacific into the Indian Ocean by the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) might play a role in causing the warming trend within the Indonesian seas. However, to what extend this heat advection could modulate the SST warming is still unresolved in the present study. Further study based on realistic model output as well as long-term observational records is necessary to describe the dynamics underlying the warming trend within the Indonesian seas.

The role of equatorial oceanic waves on the evolution of the 2007 positive Indian Ocean Dipole (pIOD) event was evaluated using available observations and output from a quasi-analytical linear wave model. It was found that the 2007 pIOD event was a weak and short-lived event: developed in the mid-summer (July), matured in the early-fall (September), and terminated in the mid-fall (October). The evolution of the 2007 pIOD event was linked to the equatorial wave dynamics. The event development was associated with the generation of upwelling equatorial Kelvin waves (westward current anomalies) generated by easterly wind anomalies. The event termination was associated with the occurrence of eastward zonal current anomalies resulting from a complex interplay between the wind-forced down welling Kelvin waves and the eastern-boundary-reflected Rossby waves. Results from a quasi-analytical linear wave model show that during the event development and maturation, the wind-forced Kelvin waves played a dominant role in generating zonal current anomalies along the equatorial Indian Ocean, while the easternboundary-reflected Rossby waves tended to weaken the wind-forced Kelvin wave signals. During the event termination our model shows that the initiation of anomalous eastward current resulted from the reflected Rossby waves at the eastern boundary. The wind-forced Kelvin waves associated with the seasonal reversal of the monsoon further strengthened the eastward zonal currents generated by the boundary-generated Rossby waves in late-October/early-November. This highlights the importance of the eastern-boundary-reflected Rossby waves on the IOD event termination.

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Abstract. 8-year and 4-year long velocity time series records from the equatorial Indian Ocean successfully captured, for the first time, complete evolution of subsurface currents associated with three consecutive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) events in 2006 -2008. It is found that strong eastward subsurface zonal currents in the layer between about 90 m and 150 m were observed, which were opposite to the normal conditions. Vertical structure of the zonal currents resembles that of the typical zonal currents in the equatorial Pacific with an eastward subsurface current lies beneath the surface westward currents. This vertical structure of the zonal currents was associated with anomalous easterly winds along the equatorial Indian Ocean during the maturing phase of the IOD events. In addition, subsurface temperature structures obtained from RAMA buoy network show negative temperature anomalies preceded the surface temperature evolution associated with the IOD events. The negative subsurface temperature anomaly lasted for several months before it changes into positive anomaly as the IOD terminated. The surface temperature structure indicated by the Dipole Mode Index (DMI) revealed that the 2006 IOD was a strong event, while the 2007 and 2008 events were weaker and short-lived events. The evolution of the IOD events were linked to the dynamics of oceanic equatorial wave. It is found that upwelling equatorial Kelvin waves forced by anomalous easterly wind stress play an important role in generating cooling tendency during the development and maturing phase of the IOD events. The demise of the IOD events, on the other hand, was linked to eastern-boundary-reflected Rossby waves that terminated the cooling tendency in the eastern Indian Ocean induced by the wind-forced Kelvin waves. Weakening of the zonal heat advection, then, provided a favor condition for the surface heat flux to warm the sea surface temperature in the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean.

An integrated observation system so-called SEnsory data transmission Service Assisted by Midori Engineering laboratory (SESAME) has been deployed in the peatland area of the South Sumatera Province, Indonesia since June 2017. The system directly measures and records the groundwater level, soil moisture, skin temperature and rainfall in the peatland area. In this study, we used data recorded at four locations, two sensors located at the Peatland Hydrological Unit (PHU) of the Saleh River and the other two are located at the PHU of the Lumpur River. Data for a period of 17 June 2017 to 31 March 2018 were used to evaluate the characteristics of hydrology and climatology of the peatland in the South Sumatera. It was found that a high rainfall is associated with low skin temperature, high soil moisture, and shallow groundwater level. Furthermore, it was found that the observed groundwater level is significantly correlated with the observed rainfall. Interestingly, the adjusted groundwater level from TRMM rainfall shows a significant correlation with the number of hotspots during dry-season (July-October). Therefore, we may use the observed rainfall for peat fire early morning.