Two centuries of oceanographic data in the Indonesian Seas and surroundings: historical patterns of data availability, gaps, and future challenges Noir P. Purba, Ghelby M. Faid, Wang Zheng, Li Rui, Mohd. Fadzil Akhir, et al. Earth System Science Data, 2025 The Indonesian Seas and Surroundings (ISS) play an important role in global ocean circulation by connecting the Pacific and Indian Oceans via the global thermohaline circulation. This region regulates the exchange of water mass, heat, salinity, and biogeochemical elements, further influencing the global climate and carbon cycle. Consequently, in this region, extensive observations and surveys, particularly the in-situ measurements, have been conducted in this region over the past two centuries. This study analyzed over 461 865 oceanographic casts from multiple international repositories, with 360 409 casts, or 21.97 % rejection, after rigorous quality control. The results show that data collection was sparse and temporally limited before the early 19th century, with a marked increase beginning in the mid-20th century. Spatially, observations are heavily concentrated along major international shipping routes, including the Makassar Strait, Malacca Strait, and South China Seas, while vast areas, such as the Halmahera Sea, Timor Sea, Java Sea, and Sulawesi Sea, remain poorly detected. Temperature and salinity are the most collected data, whereas deep-sea observations, particularly below 800 m, are critically lacking, with limited measurements of essential ocean variables such as dissolved oxygen, nutrients, and currents. Additionally, coastal regions exhibit substantial data deficiencies. Given the region's complex ocean-atmosphere interactions and unique topographic features, the current observational coverage remains insufficient to resolve the uncertainties in Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) variability, ocean heat transport, and monsoon forecasting. This study proposes to address the gaps by deploying autonomous monitoring technologies (Argo floats, gliders, moored buoys) in deep-sea and coastal regions, expanding regional observational networks, and enhancing executable data-sharing mechanisms. The raw datasets can be accessed freely from the website provided in the text, and processed datasets are preserved in data repositories with a corresponding assigned DOI. Final datasets and the computed cast per half-degree grid square with Python syntax are freely available on Mendeley repository. The data were in the TXT file format, and we used Ocean Data View Software (ODV Ver. 5.7.2), Python, and QGIS Software to process, visualize, and analyze the data (https://doi.org/10.17632/nm5txj3fps.1, Purba et al., 2025b.
Mooring-Observed Cross Equator Propagation of Kelvin Waves Through the Makassar Strait Tengfei Xu, Shujiang Li, Yingyi Yang, Yaohua Zhu, A. Kuswardani, et al. Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans, 2025 The propagation of intraseasonal Kelvin waves in the Indonesian seas significantly modulates the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) transport. However, their northward propagation across the equator within the main ITF route, particularly through the Makassar Strait, has remained unverified due to a lack of in situ observations. This study presents simultaneous mooring observations of current velocity profiles at the choke points in the ITF's main pathway, from the Lombok Strait to the northern Makassar Strait. Our results confirm the propagation of intraseasonal Kelvin waves cross the equator reaching the northern Makassar Strait, primarily along the 100‐m isobath. During the propagation, the dominant modes are the first and second baroclinic modes in the Indian Ocean, the second and third baroclinic modes between the Lombok and southern Makassar Straits, and the third to fifth baroclinic modes between the southern and northern Makassar Straits. Vertical mode decomposition reveals that the intraseasonal velocity anomaly in the northern Makassar Strait comprises the first five baroclinic modes, with the first two modes dominant in the upper 400 m and the third to fifth modes dominant at depths of 400–800 m. Our finding establishes the Makassar Strait as a definite pathway for the cross‐equator propagation of Kelvin waves, linking wave dynamics between the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Field measurements of turbulent mixing south of the Lombok Strait, Indonesia R. Dwi Susanto, Zexun Wei, Priyadi Dwi Santoso, Guanlin Wang, Muhammad Fadli, et al. Geoscience Letters, 2024 The Indonesian seas, with their complex passages and vigorous mixing, constitute the only route and are critical in regulating Pacific–Indian Ocean interchange, air–sea interaction, and global climate events. Previous research employing remote sensing and numerical simulations strongly suggested that this mixing is tidally driven and localized in narrow channels and straits, with only a few direct observations to validate it. The current study offers the first comprehensive temporal microstructure observations in the south of Lombok Strait with a radius of 0.05° and centered on 115.54oE and 9.02oS. Fifteen days of tidal mixing observations measured potential temperature and density, salinity, and turbulent energy dissipation rate. The results revealed significant mixing and verified the remotely sensed technique. The south Lombok temporal and depth averaged of the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate, and the diapycnal diffusivity from 20 to 250 m are $$\\varepsilon$$ ε = 4.15 ± 15.9) × 10–6 W kg–1 and $$K\\rho$$ K ρ = (1.44 ± 10.7) × 10–2 m2s–1, respectively. This $$K\\rho$$ K ρ is up to 104 times larger than the Banda Sea [$$K\\rho$$ K ρ = (9.2 ± 0.55) × 10–6 m2s–1] (Alford et al. Geophys Res Lett 26:2741–2744, 1999) or the “open ocean” $$K\\rho$$ K ρ = 0.03 × 10–4 m2s−1 within 2° of the equator to (0.4–0.5) × 10–4 m2s−1 at 50°–70° (Kunze et al. J Phys Oceanogr 36:1553–1576, 2006). Therefore, nonlinear interactions between internal tides, tidally induced mixing, and ITF plays a critical role regulating water mass transformation and have strong implications to longer-term variations and change of Pacific–Indian Ocean water circulation and climate.
EXTREME UPWELLING EVENTS IN THE SEAS OF THE ALOR KECIL, ALOR ISLAND, INDONESIA Anindya Wirasatriya, Dwi Susanto, Joga Setiawan, Teguh Agustiadi, Iskhaq Iskandar, et al. Oceanography, 2023 Upwelling is a process by which deep, colder, higher-nutrient waters are brought to the sea surface. In the tropics, an indicator that an upwelling event has occurred is lowering of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) to 25°–27°C from a mean of ~28°C. Based on more than one year of in situ data, we observed an unusual extreme upwelling event (EUE) when the near-surface temperature (NST) dropped by 10°C within one hour during the spring tide in Mulut Kumbang Strait of Alor Kecil. The extreme minimum NST during this EUE was ~12°C, and the upward displacement speed of the cold water was ~0.012 m s–1. The increase in salinity from ~30‰ to 34‰–36 ‰ during the decrease in NST indicates a deep source for the cold water mass . From bathymetry and CTD data, the source of the cold water mass was a deep basin (>300 m) located at the southern part of Pantar Strait. In this basin, the temperature at 270 m depth can be as low as 8°C. We suggest that tidal sloshing (i.e., the back-and-forth movement of water) brings the cold water mass through a channel that connects this deep basin to Mulut Kumbang Strait. Interactions between semi-diurnal (M2, S2, and N2) tidal components strongly modulate the tidal signal with a period of nearly one month. That EUEs only occur from August to November also suggests a strong monsoonal influence. Because tides are predictable, we suggest that future EUEs are predictable.
Amplitude modulations of seasonal variability in the Karimata Strait throughflow Yicong Nie, Shujiang Li, Zexun Wei, Tengfei Xu, Haidong Pan, et al. Frontiers in Marine Science, 2023 The Karimata Strait (KS) throughflow between the South China Sea (SCS) and Java Sea plays an essential role in heat and freshwater budget in the SCS and dual roles in strengthening/reducing the primary Indonesian throughflow (ITF) in the Makassar Strait. A sustained long-term monitoring of the ITF is logistically challenging and expensive; therefore, proxies are needed. Here, we use a combination of in situ measurement of the KS throughflow and satellite-derived sea surface height (SSH) and sea surface wind (SSW) to determine the interannual and decadal modulations in seasonal amplitude of the KS throughflow associated with El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Indian Ocean dipole (IOD), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Linear regression, correlation, harmonic and power spectrum analyses are used. The results manifest that there are significant interannual to decadal modulations in the seasonal amplitude of the KS throughflow. The modulations of the seasonal amplitude in the volume and heat transports range 1.36-1.92 Sv (1 Sv = 106 m3 s-1) and 126.41-173.36 TW (1 TW = 1012 W), respectively, with a significant cycle of ~9 years. From 1994 to 2020, the seasonal amplitude of volume transport through the KS shows an increasing trend of 37.75 ± 15.69 mSv decade-1 (1 mSv = 103 m3 s-1). The seasonal amplitude of the heat transport also increases, at a rate of 4.78 ± 1.52 TW decade-1. The KS volume transport is positively correlated with PDO and ENSO indices (r2 = 0.69 and r2 = 0.58), with a lag of 12 and 10 months, respectively. The results of composite analysis suggest that the interannual variability of the KS transport is related to the interannual anomalies of the SSH gradient and the local SSW fields in boreal winter.
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