Indian Ocean Dipole

The Indian Ocean has its own seesaw behavior, the Indian Ocean Dipole. During a so-called positive phase, warmer-than-usual water temperatures in the western Indian Ocean bring heavy rains to East Africa and India and colder-than-usual waters bring drought to Southeast Asia. In the negative phase, ocean and monsoonal conditions reverse. (Illustration by E. Paul Oberlander, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)