From Water Masses to Surface Ocean Regimes: Reassessing the Physical Classification of the Indian Ocean

This dataset contains supplementary material supporting the manuscript “From Water Masses to Surface Ocean Regimes: Reassessing the Physical Classification of the Indian Ocean”, submitted to Ocean and Coastal Research. The material provides supporting information for the contemporary classification of Indian Ocean surface ocean regimes based on monthly sea surface temperature and sea surface salinity data for 2005–2024. It includes dataset provenance, clustering validation, temporal stability and hydrographic transformation analyses, and seasonal physical-forcing summaries associated with the four identified surface ocean regimes. The supplementary material includes tables documenting the data sources and analytical procedures, K-means and Ward clustering validation, early–late period comparisons, and regime-scale physical forcing. Derived seasonal datasets include wind stress, wind-stress curl, Ekman pumping, precipitation minus evaporation (P−E), surface currents, and mixed-layer depth. The four contemporary regimes are interpreted in relation to the historical Arabian Sea Surface Water (ASSW), Bay of Bengal Surface Water (BBSW), Equatorial Indian Surface Water (EISW), and Southern Indian Surface Water (SISW) framework. The material supports the assessment of structural persistence, spatial reorganization, and hydrographic transformation of these regional surface ocean regimes. Temporal coverage: 2005–2024Study region: Indian OceanSpatial resolutions: 0.25° for regime classification and 1° for regime-scale physical-forcing analysis. This repository provides supplementary tables and derived supporting datasets associated with the manuscript and should be cited together with the published article.