Transport weighted temperature and internal energy transport of the Indonesian throughflow

A 50-year record of the Indonesian throughflow (ITF) was obtained using the Simple Ocean Data Assimilation (SODA) dataset to calculate a timeseries of Pacific-to-Indian Ocean pressure differences, which were calibrated to transport profiles using ARLINDO (1997) and INSTANT (2004–2006) observational data. The 50 year SODA based ITF transport average is 10.4 Sv; the transport weighted temperature (TWT) is 14.6 °C and the internal energy transport (IET) is 0.53 PW. The different configurations of the ITF transport and temperature profiles result in a dissimilarity in the variability of the IET and the TWT, with the IET more closely correlated with both the depth of the 18 °C isotherm in the western equatorial Pacific and the NINO3.4 index. As with the transport, the IET increases during La Niña and decreases during El Niño. The TWT is only weakly correlated with NINO3.4, suggesting that the El Niño-Southern Oscillation signal is transmitted from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean via changes in pressure and thus in transport rather than by changes in temperature.