Collaborative Research: Quantifying the Role of the Ocean Circulation in Climate Variability

在过去的几十年里，在理解海洋在气候和气候变化中的作用方面取得了重大的科学进展。然而，基本问题仍然存在，例如，海洋环流在全球海洋的什么地方和在什么时间尺度上驱动上层海洋热含量和海面温度的变化，以及这些变化在影响陆地事件（如干旱和洪水、冷热和风暴）方面发挥什么作用？该项目的首要目标是全面量化海洋环流变化对全球气候变化的作用。这一目标将通过两项主要任务来实现。第一个将是利用不同的观测数据集和海洋状态估计，诊断海洋环流驱动海面温度变化的程度，第二个将是进行数值模拟实验，以深入了解这些海洋驱动的海面温度变化对全球气候变率的影响。总之，这些任务将带来关于海洋动力变率在气候系统中的作用的新视角，有可能提高与人类福祉和安全直接相关的天气和气候事件的预测技能。这项提议的更广泛影响将来自其对研究生的支持和培训，这是维持卓越的全球大气动力学和气候研究所需的人力资源的必要条件。来自气候科学领域代表性不足群体的研究生将优先获得支持，而来自历史上代表性不足群体的本科生将通过利用为这些学生提供研究机会的现有项目来培养。此外，该项目产生的所有观测数据和模式数据将方便、免费地提供给更广泛的研究界，所有结果将通过在同行评议的主要科学期刊上发表的出版物以及在著名的国家和国际气候研讨会和会议上发表的研究结果来传播。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

There has been significant scientific progress over the past few decades in understanding the role of the ocean in climate and climate change. However, fundamental questions still exist, such as where in the global oceans and on what timescales do ocean circulations drive variations in upper-ocean heat content and sea surface temperature, and what role do those variations play in influencing events over land, such as episodes of drought and deluge, heat and cold, and storminess? The overarching goal of the project is to comprehensively quantify the role of variations in ocean circulation on global climate variability. This goal will be achieved through two main tasks. The first will be to diagnose the extent to which ocean circulations drive changes in sea surface temperatures using different observational data sets and ocean state estimates, and the second will be to conduct numerical modeling experiments to provide insight into the influence of those ocean-driven sea surface temperature changes on global climate variability. Together these tasks will lead to new perspectives on the role of ocean dynamic variability in the climate system, potentially leading to enhanced predictive skill of weather and climate events of direct relevance to human well-being and safety.The broader impacts of this proposal will result from its support and training of graduate students, which is required to sustain the pool of human resources needed for excellence in global atmospheric dynamics and climate research. Graduate students from communities underrepresented in climate science will be prioritized for support, and undergraduate students from historically underrepresented groups will be entrained by leveraging existing programs that provide research opportunities to those students. Moreover, all observational and model data generated by the project will be easily and freely accessible to the broader research community, and all results will be disseminated through publications in leading, peer-review scientific journals and through presentations of research results at prominent national and international climate workshops and conferences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.