Multidecadal and climatological surface current simulations for the southwestern Indian Ocean at 1∕50° resolution

Abstract

The Western INDian Ocean Simulation (WINDS) is a regional configuration of the Coastal and Regional Ocean Community Model (CROCO) for the southwestern Indian Ocean. WINDS has a horizontal resolution of 1/50∘ (∼2 km) and spans a latitudinal range of 23.5∘ S–0∘ N and a longitudinal range from the East African coast to 77.5∘ E. We ran two experiments using the WINDS configuration: WINDS-M, a full 28-year multidecadal run (1993–2020); and WINDS-C, a 10-year climatological control run with monthly climatological forcing. WINDS was primarily run for buoyant Lagrangian particle tracking applications, and horizontal surface velocities are output at a temporal resolution of 30 min. Other surface fields are output daily, and the full 3D temperature, salinity, and velocity fields are output every 5 d. We demonstrate that WINDS successfully manages to reproduce surface temperature, salinity, currents, and tides in the southwestern Indian Ocean, and it is therefore appropriate for use in regional marine dispersal studies for buoyant particles or other applications using high-resolution surface ocean properties.