ARABESQUE: An overview

This special issue reports the results of ARABESQUE, an UK-led, international programme of upper-ocean biogeochemistry in the Arabian Sea region, conducted during two contrasting seasons. The seasons studied were the waning of the southwest monsoon in August/September and the intermonsoon-northeast monsoon transition in November/December 1994. Biogeochemical studies were carried out along three transects in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. The main ARABESQUE transect, 1590 km in length, lay orthogonal to the southern Oman coast and spanned a range of conditions that encompassed coastal seasonal upwelling through to oceanic aseasonal oligotrophy of the central Arabian Sea. Surface mixed-layer hydrography, PAR, wind speed and direction fields, and research results obtained during the two seasonal studies are summarised in this paper, which also serves as an introductory overview to ARABESQUE.