ESSO - Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services

Slippery layers over the Northern Bay of Bengal

Venkata Jampana, M. Ravichandran, Lakshmi Kantha, Hasibur Rahaman, E.P Rama Rao, Venkat Shesu R, K Suprit and N Kameshwari

Abstract : In this brief note, we report on "slippery" layers observed during September-October of 2011 at a National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) mooring deployed at 18°N, 89°E in the northern Bay of Bengal (BoB). The mooring was located close to the mouths of the huge rivers draining the Indian subcontinent. The lateral advection of riverine water masses past the mooring resulted in a shallow brackish layer 10-15 m deep bounded by a strong halocline below, giving rise to the possibility of a slippery layer gliding past the water mass below. These "haline" slippery layers observed in the BoB complement very well the "thermal" slippery layers that have been observed under certain conditions during strong diurnal heating of the upper layers of the ocean.

Data utilized for this study

Please contact Venkata Jampana(jampana.raju@gmail.com) for further detail if any..