Utilization of EOS-06 Observations in Tropical Cyclone Research: A Case Study on Cyclone Mocha

The present work is focused on the application of data products like the ocean surface winds and chlorophyll concentration from the most recent Earth Observation Satellite (EOS) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) the EOS-06, for observing and analyzing the evolution of tropical cyclone (TC) ‘Mocha’ formed over the Bay of Bengal in May 2023. Observations from EOS-06 showed an increase of more than 300% in the chlorophyll concentration and 240% in the wind speed along the central Bay of Bengal due to the passage of the TC Mocha. The assessment from EOS-06 is validated with concurrent observations of wind and chlorophyll from ASCAT winds (Advanced Scatterometer, European Space Agency, ESA) and OC-CCI chlorophyll (ESA Climate Change Initiative merged chlorophyll product), respectively before and after the TC Mocha. While the EOS-06 wind speeds during the TC Mocha is in good agreement with ASCAT winds (Correlation coefficient = 0.89 and R² = 0.8), EOS-06 observed chlorophyll bloom is in excellent concordance with the bloom observed from OC-CCI chlorophyll (Correlation coefficient = 0.87 and R² = 0.77). Further, using the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-2 (AMSR-2) Sea Surface Temperature (SST) observations, we have ascertained the impact of wind induced mixing in causing the observed chlorophyll bloom. This work demonstrated the unique utility of earth observation data from EOS-06 for the pertinent topic like tropical cyclones.