Critical to forecasting monsoons, broken Indian Ocean monitoring system set to be resurrected.

The Indian Ocean, despite its significant impact on weather systems that affect billions of people, receives less scientific attention compared to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. However, efforts are being made to rectify this, with the Indian research ship Sagar Nidhi scheduled to service moorings in the Arabian Sea and the central Indian Ocean. These moorings, known as the RAMA array, consist of 25 buoys that provide important data on climate patterns and are crucial for predicting the timing and strength of the annual summer monsoons in South Asia. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted research cruises and led to a prolonged interruption in measurements from the array, impairing regional weather forecasts. The restoration of the RAMA array is expected to take at least another year. The Indian Ocean has historically been understudied due to a lack of resources, but its importance for regional and global climate is now recognized. The Indian Ocean can influence the Pacific's El Niño Southern Oscillation and has its own climate pattern called the Indian Ocean Dipole. The RAMA moorings, along with other data sources, have helped improve monsoon forecasting and understanding of weather events such as Madden-Julian oscillations. The data from the moorings are also important for tropical cyclone forecasting, particularly in a region that experiences a high number of cyclone-related fatalities. The urgency to monitor the Indian Ocean is further heightened by global warming, which is expected to increase the frequency of extreme cyclones and marine [Extracted from the article]