Author(s)

Hasti Amrih Rejeki, Kunarso, Munasik

Corresponding Author

Hasti Amrih Rejeki

ABSTRACT

The existence of current circulation which flowing from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean passing through Indonesia causes a connection between those two oceans. That current will be affected if there is a global scale disruption such as the occurrence of ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation). The occurrence of ENSO will cause the sea surface temperature (SST) variability in those two oceans. This study examines about the variability of SST in the eastern Indian Ocean and western Pacific Ocean at the occurrence of ENSO and the trend of SST differences between those two regions which is directly connected by the current which passing through Indonesia that called as Indonesia Throughflow. This study utilized SST data from 1982 to 2015 obtained from IRI/Ideo Climate Data Library to analyze the variability of SST at the study area and SST anomaly data of Nino 3.4 region obtained from NOAA to represent the occurrence of the ENSO. The results showed that in January, February, and March SST in the eastern Indian Ocean were higher than the SST in the western Pacific Ocean and the SST differences between those two oceans became larger when El Nino happened than while the occurrence of La Nina. In April, May, June, July, August, September, October, and November the trends of SST in western Pacific Ocean are higher than the SST in the eastern Indian Ocean and it had the same condition with El Nino and La Nina and tend to be no differences from the normal conditions. In December, where the value of the SST in western Pacific Ocean remains higher than the SST in eastern Indian Ocean but at the time of El Nino, the SST differences becomes smaller than when La Nina happened.

KEYWORDS

Variability, sea surface temperature, ENSO.