A Maluku Sea intermediate western boundary current connecting Pacific Ocean circulation to the Indonesian Throughflow

Dongliang Yuan (), Xueli Yin, Xiang Li, Corry Corvianawatie, Zheng Wang, Yao Li, Ya Yang, Xiaoyue Hu, Jing Wang, Shuwen Tan, Dewi Surinati, Adi Purwandana, Adhitya Kusuma Wardana, Mochamad Furqon Azis Ismail, Asep Sandra Budiman, Ahmad Bayhaqi, Praditya Avianto, Priyadi Dwi Santoso, Edi Kusmanto, Dirhamsyah, Zainal Arifin and Larry J. Pratt
Additional contact information
Dongliang Yuan: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xueli Yin: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xiang Li: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Corry Corvianawatie: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zheng Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yao Li: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Ya Yang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xiaoyue Hu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Jing Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Shuwen Tan: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Dewi Surinati: Research Center for Oceanography–National Research and Innovation Agency (RCO-BRIN)
Adi Purwandana: Research Center for Oceanography–National Research and Innovation Agency (RCO-BRIN)
Adhitya Kusuma Wardana: Research Center for Oceanography–National Research and Innovation Agency (RCO-BRIN)
Mochamad Furqon Azis Ismail: Research Center for Oceanography–National Research and Innovation Agency (RCO-BRIN)
Asep Sandra Budiman: Research Center for Oceanography–National Research and Innovation Agency (RCO-BRIN)
Ahmad Bayhaqi: Research Center for Oceanography–National Research and Innovation Agency (RCO-BRIN)
Praditya Avianto: Research Center for Oceanography–National Research and Innovation Agency (RCO-BRIN)
Priyadi Dwi Santoso: Research Center for Oceanography–National Research and Innovation Agency (RCO-BRIN)
Edi Kusmanto: Research Center for Oceanography–National Research and Innovation Agency (RCO-BRIN)
Dirhamsyah: Research Center for Oceanography–National Research and Innovation Agency (RCO-BRIN)
Zainal Arifin: Research Center for Oceanography–National Research and Innovation Agency (RCO-BRIN)
Larry J. Pratt: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract The Indonesian Throughflow plays an important role in the global ocean circulation and climate. Existing studies of the Indonesian Throughflow have focused on the Makassar Strait and the exit straits, where the upper thermocline currents carry North Pacific waters to the Indian Ocean. Here we show, using mooring observations, that a previous unknown intermediate western boundary current (with the core at ~1000 m depth) exists in the Maluku Sea, which transports intermediate waters (primarily the Antarctic Intermediate Water) from the Pacific into the Seram-Banda Seas through the Lifamatola Passage above the bottom overflow. Our results suggest the importance of the western boundary current in global ocean intermediate circulation and overturn. We anticipate that our study is the beginning of more extensive investigations of the intermediate circulation of the Indo-Pacific ocean in global overturn, which shall improve our understanding of ocean heat and CO2 storages significantly.

Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29617-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-29617-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29617-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().