SURFACE-LEVEL MOISTURE TRANSPORT OVER THE INDIAN-OCEAN DURING SOUTHWEST MONSOON MONTHS USING NOAA HIRS DATA

Surface-level moisture transport over the Indian Ocean has been comput ed using NOAA/HIRS data for the years 1980, 1981 and 1984. The global relation between monthly mean surface-level humidity and precipitable water (Liu, 1986) has been applied for the computation of surface-leve l humidity using monthly mean satellite-derived water vapour. The mont hly mean surface wind fields over the Indian ocean provided by Florida State University have been used for the surface-level moisture flux c omputations. Our analysis indicates net positive surface-level moistur e flux divergence over the Arabian Sea and negative moisture flux dive rgence over the Bay of Bengal. It has also been found that evaporation over the Arabian Sea is a variable quantity and forms a significant p art of the net moisture budget over the Arabian Sea. The relative cont ribution of cross-equatorial flux and evaporation from the Arabian Sea has been studied for all three years.