Recently, the on-site observations of the site of the outbreak of Australian monsoons carried out by the Center for Ocean and Climate Research (COCR) of the First Institute of Oceanography (FIO) and the Center for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research (CSHOR) of Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao) have achieved success for the first phase. The obtained results in the observations are important for understanding and forecasting the outbreak of the Australian monsoons.

In November 2018, COCR and the CSHOR cooperated to deploy a set of deep ocean buoy system, "Bai Long" and 8 sets of Argo buoys in the international waters to the northwest of Australia, realizing the high-frequency observation, collection and real-time transmission of data of sea surface meteorology and ocean subsurface environment. It effectively fills the blank of simultaneous observation of ocean and atmospheric elements in the northwest-north coast of Australia. These high-frequency data of ocean and meteorology observations and the simulation of the Australian seasonal forecasting model (ACCESS) show that the daily variation of sea surface warming will increase the subsurface sea temperature during the dry phase of the seasonal oscillation event, which enhances the transport of heat flux and moisture from the ocean to the atmosphere, which in turn promotes the development of the convective phase of the intraseasonal oscillation event, which eventually leads to the outbreak of the Australian monsoons.

With respect to future work plans, the Chinese initiator of the cooperation, Yu Weidong, said that "a more ambitious plan is to conduct long-term flux observations by using buoys at key locations between Indonesia and Australia, which has been vigorously promoted by the international community." As for Australia, the team from CSHOR will take a survey voyage during the next period of Australian monsoons outbreak so as to study multi-scale marine and atmospheric processes in the waters north to Australia.

As a partner, CSHOR specifically reported on this event on its website.

(https://cshor.csiro.au/cshor-field-campaign-to-support-australian-monsoon-prediction/)

Schematic of Outbreak of Australian Monsoons (Courtesy Je-Yuan (Andy) Hsu)