Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Research Projects

Windrows in Global Models. Greg Chini, Eric D'Asaro, Ramsey Harcourt, Keith Julien, Edgar Knobloch, Bill Large, Synte Peacock and our group are studying the impacts of including a parameterization of Langmuir circulations on climate, including a survey of the forcing of Langmuir circulations from satellite observations. Grants: IRP08, ROSES08, IGP09, CMG09. Papers: WF11.

The Past, Present, and Future ENSO. Samantha Stevenson, Markus Jochum, Peter Molnar, Markus Jochum and our group are studying the changes to the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) under different climate forcing scenarios, from the early Pliocene to potential future warming scenarios. Samantha went to Australia to work with Helen McGregor and Steven Phipps in 2011. Grants: NESSF09, IRP10, Papers: JFMS09, SFJRY10, SFJNDM11.

Diagnosing & Parameterizing Eddy Stirring. In collaboration with a team of scientists using the 1/10 degree global POP model, especially Frank Bryan and John Dennis, our group is trying to optimally diagnose eddy tracer transport. If this transport were mapped, it would be a powerful tool in understanding and parameterizing mesoscale eddy fluxes. Grants: PO08, FRG09. Papers: FFP03, FM08, FFH08, FF08, FDFH08, FF09, GJF11.

Submesoscale Physics in the Ocean Mixed Layer. In collaboration with members of the climate process team on eddy-mixed layer interaction, our group has been working on modeling and parameterizing submesoscale eddies and other submesoscale dynamics in the oceanic mixed layer. A new direction (with Chini, Julien, D'Asaro and Harcourt) is the coupling (or lack thereof) between convective plumes and Langmuir turbulence and mixed layer eddies. Grants: FRG09, CMG09. Papers: BFF07, FFH08, FF08, FDFH08, FF09, Fetal.11.

Wind-Driven Ocean. Baylor's dissertation work focused on closing the vorticity budget in the wind-driven ocean. That is, if the wind spins up the ocean, how does it spin-down/equilibrate? Balu Nadiga and Baylor are presently trying to understand how and why a Lagrangian-averaged alpha model is able to reproduce some of the high-resolution effects in this model at coarser resolution. Joel Franklin and Baylor have been talking about doing stochastics in this model for years, and might just do it some day... A collaboration with Francis Poulin will explore some of his group's exciting results contrasting wind-driven gyres in different reduced models. Ian Grooms, Keith, Julien, and Baylor have been developing new multiscale asymptotic reduced models for the ocean general circulation, too. Papers: FP04, F04, F05, FF09, GJF11.

Ocean Climate Modeling Advances. In collaboration with model development centers, our group works to improve the physical underpinnings of the ocean components of global climate models. This work is the primarily application of the basic research detailed above. Grants: All Papers: Aetal.04, FFH08, FF08, FDFH08, FM08, JFMS09, SFJRY10, Getal.10, Setal.10, Fetal.11, GJF11.