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Abstract. Over the past decade, our understanding of the IndianOcean has advanced through concerted efforts toward measuring the oceancirculation and air–sea exchanges, detecting changes in water masses, andlinking physical processes to ecologically important variables. Newcirculation pathways and mechanisms have been discovered that controlatmospheric and oceanic mean state and variability. This review bringstogether new understanding of the ocean–atmosphere system in the IndianOcean since the last comprehensive review, describing the Indian Oceancirculation patterns, air–sea interactions, and climate variability.Coordinated international focus on the Indian Ocean has motivated theapplication of new technologies to deliver higher-resolution observationsand models of Indian Ocean processes. As a result we are discovering theimportance of small-scale processes in setting the large-scale gradients andcirculation, interactions between physical and biogeochemical processes,interactions between boundary currents and the interior, and interactions between thesurface and the deep ocean. A newly discovered regional climate mode in thesoutheast Indian Ocean, the Ningaloo Niño, has instigated more regionalair–sea coupling and marine heatwave research in the global oceans. In thelast decade, we have seen rapid warming of the Indian Ocean overlaid withextremes in the form of marine heatwaves. These events have motivatedstudies that have delivered new insight into the variability in ocean heatcontent and exchanges in the Indian Ocean and have highlighted the criticalrole of the Indian Ocean as a clearing house for anthropogenic heat. Thissynthesis paper reviews the advances in these areas in the last decade.