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Indian Ocean Dipole: What is it and why is it linked to floods and bushfires?

Source(s): British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
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Commonwealth of Australia, 2013 [ http://bit.ly/36tO0gX ]
Commonwealth of Australia, 2013 [ http://bit.ly/36tO0gX ]

By Pablo Uchoa and the BBC's Visual Journalism Teams

Flooding and landslides in East Africa have killed dozens of people and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in Australia, a period of hot, dry weather has led to a spate of bushfires.

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Both weather events have been linked to higher-than-usual temperature differences between the two sides of the Indian Ocean - something meteorologists refer to as the Indian Ocean Dipole.

[…]

Temperatures in the eastern part of the ocean oscillate between warm and cold compared with the western part, cycling through phases referred to as "positive", "neutral" and "negative".

[…]

The result of this unusually strong positive dipole this year has been higher-than-average rainfall and floods in eastern Africa and droughts in south-east Asia and Australia.

[…]

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