Red Sea Circulation and Dynamics

就其环流和动力学而言，红海可以说是世界海洋中采样最不足和了解最少的边缘海。这在很大程度上是由于在一个几十年来基本上禁止进行科学研究的区域获得现场海洋学和大气观测的困难。红海的大规模环流对其大部分原始珊瑚礁生态系统的健康有着重大影响，这些生态系统面临着无数的自然和人为威胁。这项研究将有助于发展海洋预测模式，以预测污染物的扩散和减轻其负面影响。这项工作还涉及与国际伙伴的合作，并支持一名博士后研究员。本研究的总体目标是通过对观测结果和模式输出的分析，增加对红海环流及其控制动力学的了解，包括：(1)几种新的独特的海流、水性质和海气通量的原位数据集，(2)卫星导出的海面温度、海平面异常和散射计风的时间序列，以及(3)最近生成的有限体积群落海洋模式的数值模式产品。以及麻省理工学院通用循环模型的现实和理想配置。重点研究东部边界流的结构和动力学，以及窄山口风射流对地面环流和海气通量的影响。该项目还将在理想化数值模拟的背景下重新审视现有模型，以评估其描述倾覆环流的适用性。

The Red Sea is arguably the most under sampled and least understood marginal sea in the World Ocean in terms of its circulation and dynamics. This is due in large part to the difficulty of obtaining in situ oceanographic and atmospheric observations in a region that has been largely off-limits for scientific research for decades. The large-scale circulation of the Red Sea has a significant impact on the health of its mostly pristine coral reef ecosystem, which faces a myriad of natural and anthropogenic threats. This study will contribute to the development of ocean forecast models for predicting the spread of pollutants and mitigating their negative impacts. The work also involves collaboration with international partners and support for a postdoctoral investigator.The overall goal of this research is to increase understanding of the Red Sea circulation and its governing dynamics, through the analysis of observations and model output, including (1) several new unique in situ data sets of currents, water properties and air-sea fluxes, (2) time series of satellite-derived sea surface temperature, sea level anomaly and scatterometer winds and (3) recently generated numerical model products from the Finite-Volume Community Ocean Model, as well as realistic and idealized configurations of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology general circulation model. The research will focus on the structure and dynamics of eastern boundary currents, and the impact of narrow mountain-gap wind jets on surface circulation and air-sea fluxes. The project will also revisit an existing model in the context of an idealized numerical simulation to assess its suitability for describing the overturning circulation.