Collaborative Research: The Interaction of Anticyclonic Eddies with Deep Convection

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An increasing amount of observational evidence now points to intense, oftenlong-lived, aticyclonic eddies as one of the outstanding dynamical features in thedeeply convecting regions of the world ocean. Yet modeling studies, informed by themore limited observations available in the past, have tended to focus on precisely theopposite case, cyclonic eddies that rapidly disintegrate when subjected to strongsurface cooling. Anticyclonic eddies could interactwith deep convection in a variety of ways, but their net effect on convectivewater mass transformation is far from obvious. Their influence must therefore beconsidered an important unresolved element of the global thermohaline circulation, andby extension, a research problem of substantial societal concern.It is proposed to investigate the interaction between anticyclonic eddies andconvection using a combined modeling and data analysis approach. The detailedbehavior of anticyclonic eddies subject to strong surface buoyancy loss will beexamined throughout a broad range of parameter space. With the aid of newlydeveloped mathematical and statistical techniques, we will systematically identify anddescribe coherent eddies in several key convection areas using a variety of high-qualitydatasets. The net result should be a significant step towards a more completeunderstanding of deep convection in a realistic setting. This process-oriented work willmake possible improved parameterizations of convection in large-scale models,and thus more accurate predictions of climate variability.