While Goans were wondering about the delay in the onset of the monsoon this year, two Goans were in the Arabian Sea searching for answers and literally chasing Cyclone Biparjoy. Goan scientist, Prof Joaquim I Goes and a research student, Rohan Menezes were among a group of scientists from India and USA on board a US research vessel, as part of an Indo-US study on Enhancing Knowledge of the Arabian Sea marine environment through Science and Advanced Training (EKAMSAT).
A professor at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York City, Prof Joaquim, originally from Cortalim, says, “Roger Revelle is an American ship and had scientists from India and US and the focus was on studying how the warming is happening in the Arabian Sea which is influencing the onset of the monsoon. The Arabian Sea has warmed up about 2 degrees higher than it was a decade ago. This influences the connection between the oceans and the atmosphere, how much moisture is found while low-pressure shelves are created in the Arabian Sea. This has a bearing on the monsoon and we have no idea how to improve the global model. In the past 4-5 years, we had many cyclones in the Arabian Sea and the reason is that the Arabian Sea is warmer than it was before and this is clearly a result of climate change. There haven’t been any studies but I am hyper précising that this is a warming cause in the Arabian Sea. There have been studies but no one has linked it to the warming before over the last few years but it is going to affect countries like India, Pakistan, Iraq, Oman and Yemen.”
This was a pilot 21-day cruise but it constitutes of a big programme that will go on till 2025 with the team returning in 2024 and 2025, exactly prior to the onset of the monsoon. “We came with the idea that we needed to coordinate because there will be 3 ships involved, one American and two Indian ships and we had to have an idea of what kind of instrumentation we needed, how to position the ships in this period and who are the personnel that will be involved to make the measurements,” says Dr Joaquim, about the Indo-US study that involves many partners including India metrological Department (IMD), Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) and Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) which is based in Hyderabad and the American side is funded by the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). The chief scientist was Dr Craig Lee from the University of Washington, with 16 scientists from US and 14 scientists from India.
What they didn’t expect in their yearlong preparations for the cruise was a cyclone. “In a way, Cyclone Biparjoy smeared what we are trying to achieve. When a cyclone passes, it takes away all the moisture with it and it also cools the ocean. The amount of moisture we expected to build up in the atmosphere in the warming, all that was taken and dumped in Gujarat and Pakistan. We were towards the east closer to the coast of Kerala and Cyclone Biparjoy formed offshore to the coast of Kavaratti. We were able to mimic conditions of what we expected but a lot of the moisture had already been taken away. There was a lot of disturbance in the atmosphere as well. We were at sea when the cyclone was passing through on June 6 and we went behind the cyclone. We stayed very close to the coast and as a cyclone was passing, we turned around and went back around the cyclone and we stayed to the south of it,” he explains.
He further adds, “After the cyclone passed, we saw this huge bloom and you get an immediate idea of how much impact the cyclone had. The advantage we had is that during the monsoon the satellite cannot see the ocean very well because of the clouds but after the cyclone the atmosphere is completely clear and so we got these beautiful days where we had no clouds and the satellite could really pick up the change in colour. We didn’t get the monsoons when we were out but we were lucky that the cyclone was a perfect analogue to the monsoon. It created exactly what we wanted for the biological response after a prolonged period of the pre-monsoon weather Arabian Sea which is completely without any more nutrients, phytoplankton, completely like a desert. But the cyclone churned the water and you can see a huge trail of phytoplankton and typically when the monsoon sets in the water you get enriched.”
The long term goal is to find out how the delays in the monsoon will affect fisheries. He says, “Our work, which was different from what others are doing, was funded by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with three people in the team including Rohan Menezes and a member of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We were interested in studying the colour of the ocean as well as changes from blue to green and we will be working with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). So NASA is working with ISRO and we are trying to map areas of high productivity and how they will affect fisheries. You can tell that from space over a large area with the help of satellite data because it is a very difficult to do this from ships.”
There are thousands of phytoplankton in the ocean and they got different kinds and pigments and each type of phytoplankton has got a unique pigment signature and those pigments absorb the incoming light of the sun and whatever is not absorbed is reflected. From that reflected light spectrum, one can tell what kind of phytoplankton is in the water.
“We are trying to understand whether we can detect what kind of phytoplankton appears because sardines and mackerel require diatoms. Our ultimate goal is to find out how the monsoons affect biology, how the warming trends are going to affect fisheries and how if the ocean continues to warm fish landings as we move forward in time. Both these aspects of food in the sea and food on the land, our entire ecosystem is monsoon driven. If the monsoon fails, the prices of essential commodities goes up and the delay in monsoon affects the plantation of rice crops which has a huge bearing on the availability of food on land. If we have a bad monsoon it affects the productivity of the seas as well,”
he explains.
They tested a lot of equipment that could work best in these waters and received good data with autonomous underwater gliders going into the water to measure conditions in the water and current temperature depth sensors. “The next cruise there will be a lot more people, a lot more equipment, most of it will be state of the art, which are not tested in other oceans but will be deployed over here. These are the physical oceanographers and atmospheric scientists, who do most of this work. We are interested in seeing what the biological responses are,” he says.
Rohan Menezes from Miramar is currently pursuing his Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA. “This was my first time on a research expedition. I learnt to use a wide variety of equipment. Field sciences are highly important to truly understanding the natural environment. It is very hard to imagine massive concepts like how the ocean atmosphere creates balance and how the climate is changing very rapidly. Being able to see it first-hand truly inspired me. It was a really important aspect of my education that allowed me to better understand the concepts that I was studying in class,” says Rohan.
Rohan applied and got into the summer program at Columbia University, New York, which is a research experienced undergraduate programme funded by the National Science Foundation of the US and Dr Joaquim Goes is his research supervisor for the duration of the program. “He decided to bring me on the cruise as I am assigned to him for the summer. Once I return to the US, I will complete the rest of the summer program and will be going back for the fourth year of college at Dartmouth College,” adds Rohan.
Dr Joaquim was a student of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour High School in Cortalim and Chowgule College, Margao and after his post-graduation in Goa, he joined National Institute of Oceanography, Dona Paula before heading to pursue his PhD at Nagoya University, Japan. He came back to Goa for a few years before leaving to the USA. At the NIO, he was also a member of the 6th Indian Scientific Expedition to Antarctica in 1986-87.
Speaking about his experience at NIO, he says, “We had very good Goan directors in Dr Ehrlich Desa and Dr Satish Shetye and they both had studied overseas and they had come back to Goa to work in this institute. I did the opposite. It was not that your work was not high-quality but I wanted to experience something else and wanted to deal with the broader community of people,” concludes Dr Joaquim.