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Satellite Surveillance of Upwelling Along

the East Coast of India
a
K. Muni Krishna
a
Department of Meteorology and Oceanography, Andhra University,
Visakhapatnam, India

Available online: 16 May 2011

To cite this article: K. Muni Krishna (2011): Satellite Surveillance of Upwelling Along the East Coast of
India, Marine Geodesy, 34:2, 181-187

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 Marine Geodesy, 34:181–187, 2011
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0149-0419 print / 1521-060X online
DOI: 10.1080/01490419.2011.571560

Technical Note

Satellite Surveillance of Upwelling Along the East

Coast of India

K. MUNI KRISHNA
Department of Meteorology and Oceanography, Andhra University,
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Visakhapatnam, India

Upwelling process is allied with the primary productivity along the east coast of India.
Coastal upwelling index (CUI) varies from 10–150 m3/s/100m of coastline length and
is at its maximum during March and August. Spectral analysis of the CUI shows that
the frequency ranges from 0.1–0.2 cycles/day, exhibiting a number of significant energy
peaks. The presence of energy frequency ranging from 0.1–0.2 cycles/day is clearly
evident especially for the Visakhapatnam and Chennai locations. Seasonal and synoptic
variability of upwelling signatures is identified using satellite sea surface temperature
during 2000–2003.

Keywords Coastal upwelling, sea surface temperature (SST), AVHRR, central east
coast of India

Introduction
The central east coast of India is one of the world’s most productive areas due to coastal
upwelling phenomena (Divakar Naidu et al. 1999; Gomes et al. 2000; Kumar et al. 2004;
Muni Krishna 2007, 2008; Narasimha Rao 2002; Rao et al. 1995; Rao and Chamarthi
1997; Smith 1995). The interchange of waters between the coastal zone and the open
sea is a crucial area of research for determining abiotic conditions in the evolution of
coastal ecosystems. It is well-known that high productivity in the shelf off the central
east coast of India closely resembles the coastal upwelling activity. The process develops
when equator-ward wind blows persistently along the coast, leading to the Ekman offshore
transport (based on wind stress and Coriolis force). The implication is that surface waters
are transported away from the central east coast subsequently replaced by cold saltier water
originating from depths of 50–100 m, bringing nutrients to the surface layer. Upwelling
affects all physical parameters of seawater, including the thermohaline structure as well the
three-dimensional circulation, forming environmental conditions conducive to ecosystem
development. Although vertically integrated Ekman transport is perpendicular to the wind
direction, in the upper layer Ekman spiral provides moderate equator-ward longshore
transport. At the same time, upwelling forces the vertical dispersion and superficial transport

Received 24 June 2010; accepted 23 September 2010.

Address correspondence to K. Muni Krishna, Department of Meteorology and Oceanography,
Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, India – 530 003. E-mail: kailasam2005@yahoo.co.in

181
 182 K. M. Krishna
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Figure 1. Map of the central east coast of India, showing study region and the main coastal stations.

of plankton and larvae due to the divergence of the rising waters. The existence of wind-
forced, cross-shelf circulation has been confirmed by numerical modeling (Rao et al. 2002).
It was shown that the wind stress curl expands the upwelling front offshore and alters the
thickness of the upper layer (Enriquez and Friehe 1995).
A more convenient and practical method for calculating the upwelling activity in-
dices has been developed by Bakun (1973). According to this approach, values of coastal
upwelling indices (CUI) are calculated based on magnitude of the offshore transport compo-
nent, normal to the local coastline orientation (m3/s/100m of coastline). The CUI, expressed
in the terms of Ekman transport, is a quantitative index for the amount of water moving
offshore, which represents all the upwelling-forced atmospheric and hydrodynamic pro-
cesses. Hence, the value of CUI determines how much water gets transported to the offshore.
The objective of this article is to enhance our understanding the seasonal and interannual
changes of local upwelling areas in the central east coast of India (Figure 1) during the past
few years.

Data and Methods

To evaluate seasonal and interannual variability of upwelling-related processes along the
central east coast of India, the daily and monthly 1◦ mesh wind and wind stress data,
as well the averaged six-hourly and monthly CUI series, were used for the study period
(1990–2003). These data, estimated from the U.S. Navy’s Fleet Numerical Meteorology
and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) sea level pressure fields, are available in the PFEL
website (www.pfel.noaa.gov) for the scientific community. Scatterometer data from the
QuikSCAT satellite were obtained for July 1999 through December 2003 to compare
the wind data with the Pacific Fisheries Environmental Laboratory (PFEL) set. The sea
winds scanning microwave radar, using the backscattered signal from the roughness of
sea surface, provides the 10 m wind field with an accuracy of about 1 m/s in speed and
about 20◦ in direction (Freilich and Dunbar 1999). The data sets from QuikSCAT are
 Upwelling Along the East Coast of India 183
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Figure 2. Sea surface wind stress (N/m2) off central east coast of India during monsoon period
(JJAS) of 2000.

currently available in different formats from July 19, 1999, to the present on a 0.25◦ ×
0.25◦ global grid with temporal resolution of every six hours. To define the nearshore
upwelling regions along the coast of the central east coast of India, the averaged weekly and
monthly SST distributions were obtained. These charts were developed using Advanced
Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) infrared images provided by NOAA. The
AVHRR sensor senses the earth’s surface with a nadir resolution of 1.1 km, transmitting the
data to reception stations on land. Spectral calculations were performed using the StatGraph
software (Zaytsev et al. 2003).
 184 K. M. Krishna

Figure 3. Average monthly coastal upwelling indices at various coastal stations during the period
January 1990 to December 2003. Units are metric tons per second per 100 m of coastline length.

Results
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Wind stress is the primary forcing mechanism that affects upwelling circulation along
the central east coast of India. Accordingly, the spatial and temporal variability of the
coastal wind field is an important component for coastal circulation studies. Usually, the
wind stress is calculated from each wind vector using the classic quadratic relation (Bakun
1973). Figure 2 depicts the distribution of averaged monthly wind stress along the central
east coast of India during the months of February–March and November–December 2000
from QuikSCAT data. The highest values of upwelling-favorable stress were observed
corresponding to the southern part of the study area in November and slightly lower during
February.
Interannual variability of the monthly averaged CUI during the period from January
1990 to December 2003 is shown in Figure 3 for selected stations along the coast. The
indices for the locations off Visakhapatnam and Chennai have been calculated according
to the local coastline orientation. The intensification of upwelling activity toward Visakha-
patnam latitudes is evident; average CUI magnitudes for the latitude on average (about
100 m3s−1 per 100 m length of coastal line) exist during the periods of March and De-
cember. Figure 4 shows the spectra of daily averaged CUI at two locations along the
coast (17.5◦ N and 13◦ N). Spectra calculated using entire time series from January 1, 1990,
through December 31, 2003, reveals that the frequency ranges from 0.1–0.2 cycles/day
(corresponding to periods from 5–10 days) having a number of dominant energy peaks.
The observed value of this spectral density exhibit a decrease of about 50% moving from
north to south (Visakhapatnam to Chennai stations).

Figure 4. Spectra of the daily averaged coastal upwelling indices at two selected locations in the
central east coast of India.
 Upwelling Along the East Coast of India 185

Figure 5. Seasonal cycle of the offshore Ekman transport calculated according the PFEL methodol-
ogy. Means of the offshore components were averaged for the period from January 1990 to December
2003. Units are metric tons per second per 100 m coastline length along the east cost of India.
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Figure 6. Averaged monthly SST distributions for the period of June (2000 - 2003), from AVHRR
imageries.
 186 K. M. Krishna

To analyze the seasonal mean variability of the upwelling-forced conditions, the av-
erage monthly CUI for 1990 through 2003 have been calculated for the central east coast
with a latitude resolution of 0.5◦ . The time-latitude slice of the CUI is shown in Figure
5. This figure presents a near-perfect confirmation for both the upwelling intensification
during January to March and October to December exhibiting a decreased upwelling fa-
vorable activity towards the south. A critical examination of these results reveals that weak
upwelling conditions prevalent south of Visakhapatnam from 17.5◦ N, during January to
March were closely correlated with the fall wind stress patterns (Figure 3). Figure 6 shows
the average monthly SST distributions during March 2000 to March 2003. The cold patterns
in upwelling present in southern area were of lower intensity off Visakhapatnam. Despite
relatively high CUI values, the northern upwelling zones (Visakhapatnam) show a good
correlation closer to the coastline.

Conclusions
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The key environmental parameter responsible for upwelling is the wind, hence the spatial
resolution of the wind plays a significant role in determination of CUI estimates. Seasonal
features and latitudinal variability of upwelling-related processes along the central east coast
of India have been described, using coastal upwelling indices based on PFEL methodology.
It is confirmed that the upwelling intensity is higher in northern area of study domain skill
assessed through remote sensing methods.

Acknowledgements
The present research work is supported through funding received from the Department
of Science and Technology, Government of India, under the Fast Track Young Scien-
tist Project (SR/FTP/ES-09/2008), which is gratefully acknowledged. I thank the PFEL,
NMFS-NOAA, for providing upwelling data, and NASA Physical Oceanography Dis-
tributed Active Archive Centre at the Jet Population Laboratory, California Institute of
Technology, for the sea winds (QuikSCAT) data. The author acknowledges anonymous
reviewers for their constructive comments to improve this manuscript.

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