Comparative Analysis of Sea Surface Temperature Pattern in the Eastern and Western Gulfs of Arabian Sea and the Red Sea in Recent Past Using Satellite Data

Abstract

With unprecedented rate of development in the countries surrounding the gulfs of the Arabian Sea, there has been a rapid warming of these gulfs. In this regard, using Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data from 1985 to 2009, a climatological study of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and its inter annual variability in the Persian Gulf (PG), Gulf of Oman (GO), Gulf of Aden (GA), Gulf of Kutch (KTCH), Gulf of Khambhat (KMBT), and Red Sea (RS) was carried out using the normalized SST anomaly index. KTCH, KMBT, and GA pursued the typical Arabian Sea basin bimodal SST pattern, whereas PG, GO, and RS followed unimodal SST curve. In the western gulfs and RS, from 1985 to 1991-1992, cooling was observed followed by rapid warming phase from 1993 onwards, whereas in the eastern gulfs, the phase of sharp rise of SST was observed from 1995 onwards. Strong influence of the El Niño and La Niña and the Indian Ocean Dipole on interannual variability of SST of gulfs was observed. Annual and seasonal increase of SST was lower in the eastern gulfs than the western gulfs. RS showed the highest annual increase of normalized SST anomaly (+0.64/decade) followed by PG (+0.4/decade).