Near-Real-Time Availability of Ocean Heat Content Over the North Indian Ocean

Ocean heat content (OHC) is an important parameter in determining the heat flux in the ocean-atmosphere system, which can influence weather systems such as cyclones and monsoons. Hence, regular monitoring of OHC is required, which needs continuous subsurface temperature profiles. Due to the scarcity of in situ temperature profiles in space and time, remotely sensed sea surface temperature (SST) and sea surface height anomalies (SSHAs) are employed in the computation of OHC in the Indian Ocean. OHC derived from in situ temperature profiles from ARGO floats along with collocated SST, SSHA and OHC climatology during the period 2002-2012 are used to estimate OHC700 (heat content up to 700-m depth), using an artificial neural network model. The estimated OHC700 is validated and is found to be significantly correlated with the observed OHC700. Using this approach, OHC700 is being estimated daily on a near-real-time basis, and the products are available at http://bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in/data/download/index.php.