Arabian Sea To Witness More Cyclones, Decline In Fish Production

The Arabian Sea will witness more number of cyclones with high intensity while there will be a decline in the number of cyclones in the Bay of Bengal because of a sea warming skew

- S Prasannakumar, former director, National Institute of Oceanography

MANOJ VISWANATHAN @ Kochi W HILE global warming is trigger ing climate change and changing wind patterns, there is more disturbing news for India. The rapid increase in sea surface temperature (SST) and the associated five-fold increase in Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential (TCHP) will trigger an increase in occurrence of higher categories and higher number of cyclones in the Arabian Sea, says a study titled "Is a warming Northern Indian Ocean Generating more tropical cyclones", by R S Abhinav, Jayu, Narvekar, S Prasannakumar and Evelin Francis, published by the Journal of Operational Oceanography on May 8.

Explaining the findings, National Institute of Oceanography former director S Prasannakumar told TNIE that the fish productivity of Arabian Sea will be affected.

"There has been a decline in the rate of warming of the Bay of Bengal after 1995. An analysis of 60-month data of the Sea Surface Temperature of both the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal showed an approximate decadal cycle. Though the overall rate of warming in both the Arabian Sea (0.0118°C per year and the Bay of Bengal (0.0117°C per year was almost the same, the post-1995 slopes were quite different. In the Arabian Sea the rate of warming during post-1995 (0.014°C per year) was higher than that of pre-1995 (0.008°C per year). In contrast, the Bay of Bengal's post-1995 rate of warming (0.009°C per year) was lower than that of the pre-1995 period (0.013°C per year)," he said.