`How do we
The Indonesian seas located at the confluence of the Eurasian Plate, the Indo-Australian Plate and the Pacific Plate. The area is comprises shelf in the west part and deep sea in the east part with their spatial characteristics. Moreover, the Indonesian archipelago is also known as the ‘Maritime Continent’ that is composed of more than 17,000 islands (Ramage 1968; Qu et al. 2005, Smith and Sandwell, 1997). Since the early comprehensive review of Pariwono (1986) on Indonesian waters and some papers (Pariwono, et al., 2005, van Aken, 2005), the subject has not been specifically the combination between ocean and atmospheric phenomenon (e.g. Hendon, 2003; Qu, et al. 2005).
This introductory review is a contribution to fill in this gap, but is by no means exhaustive. Furthermore, the essay is intended to overview sea surface temperature and rainfall variability in the Indonesian seas. The best explanation, this essay will argue, is essential to monitor those parameters in order to understand the mechanisms and the impacts of them in this region. We begin with oceanographic research in this region in a historical perspective and the reason why is the region so interesting, then continue with a description of general characteristics of sea surface temperature (SST) variability including its generating mechanisms. Rainfall issue will be discussed in the following section, and finally we discuss the issues that need to be addressed by further research.
Oceanographers and meteorologists are interested in the unique characteristics of these tropical seas either in oceanic or meteorological aspects. First of all, we discuss the oceanic issues. Historically, Indonesian seas research started a long time ago. To give a brief explanation in a historical perspective, Pariwono et al. (2005) divides the evolution into three major periods; the pre-colonial period (from earliest recorded history until the end of 16th century), colonial period (from the beginning of the 17th century to Indonesian independence in 1945), which is discussed in detail by van Aken (2005) and post-independence period (from 1945 to 2000). To give an example, in the earliest period, the research focused in order to support business activities that used traditional ships such as tides, monsoon-driven currents and ocean circulation researches. For the following era, many expeditions were carried out by western scientist not only to support trade activities but also ‘pure’ science. For example, the famous Snellius expedition as describes in van Riel (1932) that focused on hydrographical aspect and bottom topography in the region. Meanwhile, when the research in the Indonesian seas, nowadays, has a better understanding and solid foundation, the phase research can better focus on core problems (Gordon, 2005).
Recently, the attention from the oceanic community into this region is increasing. To take another example, Setiawan (2008) reviews several international journals for about 43 papers related to west part of Indonesian seas, 21 papers related to east Indonesian seas and 8 papers related to global Indonesian seas. Most of the research was conducted in collaboration between Indonesian researchers and International scientists. This cooperation, off course, would give more benefit to the country not only to explore their resources but also to improve their own scientist’s capacity building. The recent successful collaboration is the International INSTANT (International Nusantara Stratification and Transport) program, which is focused on monitoring the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) and related topics. The program conducted in collaboration among several countries, including:
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