Large-scale circulation

Research on mechanisms, prediction, and earth system impacts of inter-annual to decadal time scale earth system variability, particularly associated with the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC): the representation of physical processes in ocean and earth system models including transport of materials by ocean currents and mixing, mesoscale and submesoscale variability: physics of the upper ocean and feedbacks with the atmosphere, relationship to paleoclimatology and paleoceanography, bottom water formation and export, shelf-deep ocean interactions and consequences, western boundary currents and eastern boundary currents; and their interaction with the atmosphere. Tropical ocean dynamics, mixing, routes to dissipation from larger-scale processes.

Scale Interactions

Research of the connection between small-scale processes such as turbulent ocean mixing, mesoscale and submesoscale variability, and large-scale ocean dynamics across different temporal scales; how these affect the atmosphere and Earth system; including the Tropical oceans, as well as western boundary currents and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current: mixing associated with ocean fronts and eddies and mode water formation.

Regional and Coastal applications

Research includes coastal physical oceanography, flooding and contaminant transport during hurricanes under changing Earth system and land use, surface waves, nearshore processes, cross-shelf exchange, and larval transport. This has also involved engagement with communities and marine resource managers, working with coastal communities to understand the impact of earth system change on marine ecosystems. Another focus is on coastal upwelling representation in models, particularly for eastern boundary systems (e.g., California Current, Peru and Chile, Benguela). Regional and global ocean modeling is used here.

Model development

Model development encompasses a wide range of research and applications. It is underpinned by dynamical oceanography, fluid dynamics, applied mathematics, and computer science. Specific aspects include: 

  • Ocean and earth system model development and coupling, upper ocean models for global modeling studies, atmosphere-ocean forcing. 
  • Subgridscale parameterizations to represent unresolved physics in ocean general circulation models;  including Eddy parameterizations; submesoscale turbulence, vertical mixing.
  • Software engineering in ocean models, especially parameterizations of vertical processes. CVMix (Community Vertical Mixing library) and MARBL (Marine Biogeochemistry Library).
  • Ocean model diagnostics development, scalable, performant Python packages for data analysis. 
  • Formal methods in scientific computing; high-performance computing. 
  • Developing suites of optimal grids.
  • Developing forcing datasets for driving ocean-sea-ice models.

Ecosystems and biogeochemistry

  • Modeling plankton dynamics in the global oceans, developing new phytoplankton and zooplankton ecosystem configurations in MARBL, understanding how Earth system change and variability and ocean acidification affect ocean ecosystems,
  • Modeling ocean biogeochemical cycles and the global carbon cycle. Interactions between ocean physics and biology, ocean tracers and stable isotope biogeochemistry.
  • Interactions between ocean physics, air-sea gas exchange, coastal terrestrial, hydrological, and biological processes, and Earth system change with the global carbon cycle; networked observational systems; regional ocean modeling of coastal dynamics and biogeochemical cycles. 
  • Effects of changes in the Earth's atmosphere on coral reefs and other marine ecosystems, coral bleaching, ocean acidification. 
  • Marine heat waves and their impacts.

Data assimilation and inverse modeling 

  • Applications of ensemble data assimilation to coupled Earth system, including ocean physics and biogeochemistry
  • Use of ocean model adjoints to study fundamental physical processes 
  • Parameter estimation and model bias reduction
  • Data assimilation for initialized Earth system predictability experiments

Ice-ocean

Air-ice-sea interactions in the context of Earth system variability.