Surface processes and the interior ocean response

我的研究计划的长期目标是了解不同类别的海洋运动如何相互作用。这些相互作用有助于确定海洋的一般环流和负责通过水柱输送热量和其他示踪剂的垂直速度。了解它们对我们对海洋的理论理解和为建模战略提供信息都是重要的。这一领域的最新工作侧重于地转流(如墨西哥湾流、黑潮或南极绕极流)与近惯性振荡(在科里奥利频率附近振荡的NIOS)之间的相互作用。之所以强调这一点，是因为海洋的大部分动能都存在于这两类流动中。我的工作在帮助阐明NIOS可能如何影响地转环流的能量学方面产生了影响。地转流和NIOS在表层海洋中都特别强，那里也是表面重力波、海冰和摩擦埃克曼层的所在地。我研究的短期目标是更好地理解这些过程如何改变地转流和NIOS。海冰和表面重力波场可以被认为是改变了作用于海洋环流的有效风力。我们的工作将有助于澄清这些修正(在高波数范围内可能是定性的)。在海冰的情况下，我们将感兴趣的是，随着海冰变薄，这种有效的强迫可能会如何演变。我们还将研究有效强迫的这些变化如何影响地转湍流和NIOS的演化。表层也是摩擦性埃克曼层的所在地，最近的研究(包括我们自己的工作)表明，埃克曼的输送和抽水不仅仅由当地的风和洋流决定，而是更多地取决于强迫和流场。这一点，以及最近发现的涉及Ekman-NIO相互作用的不稳定性表明，需要更好地理解这些动态，而这样做是我们的另一个短期目标。拟议的工作将有助于解开发生在上层海洋中的复杂混合过程，以及它们之间的相互作用如何有助于确定大洋环流和NIOS的叠加场。因此，结果是更好地了解将二氧化碳、热量和营养物质输送进和运出表层的垂直输送速度，因此气候和环境科学家直接感兴趣。我们的工作还有助于弥合物理海洋学不同方面之间的差距(例如，中纬度海洋环流理论与北冰洋环流理论，以及更好地将表面波整合到GFD中)，因此使在这些领域工作的加拿大科学家受益。

The long term goal of my research program is to understand how different classes of oceanic motion interact. These interactions help to determine both the general circulation of the oceans and the vertical velocities responsible for transporting heat and other tracers through the water column. Understanding them is important both to our theoretical understanding of the oceans and to inform modelling strategies. Most recent work in this area focuses on interactions between geostrophic currents (such as the Gulf Stream, Kuroshio or Antarctic Circumpolar Current) and near-inertial oscillations (NIOs, which oscillate near the Coriolis frequency). The reason for this emphasis is that most of the ocean's kinetic energy resides in these two classes of flow. My work has been influential in helping to clarify how NIOs might affect the energetics of the geostrophic circulation. Both geostrophic currents and NIOs are particularly strong in the surface ocean, which is also home to surface gravity waves, sea ice, and a frictional Ekman layer. Short term goals of my research are to better understand how these processes act to modify geostrophic currents and NIOs. The sea ice and the surface gravity wave fields can be thought of as modifying the effective wind forcing that acts on ocean circulation. Our work will help to clarify these modifications (which can be qualitative in nature in the high wavenumber range). In the case of sea ice, we will be interested in how this effective forcing is likely to evolve as sea ice thins. We will also examine how these changes to the effective forcing influence the evolution of geostrophic turbulence and NIOs. The surface layer is also home to a frictional Ekman layer and recent work (including our own) has shown Ekman transport and pumping to not be determined solely by the local winds and currents, but to instead depend more globally on the forcing and current fields. This, and recently uncovered instabilities involving Ekman-NIO interaction point to a need to better understand these dynamics, and doing so is another of our short term goals. The work proposed will help to disentangle a complex mixture of processes occurring in the upper ocean, and how interactions between them help to determine ocean circulation and the superposed field of NIOs. An outcome is therefore a better understanding of vertical transport velocities transporting CO2, heat, and nutrients into and out of the surface layer and is thus of direct interest to climate and environmental scientists. Our work also helps bridge gaps between different aspects of physical oceanography (e.g., midlatitude versus Arctic ocean circulation theory and better integrating surface waves into GFD) and as such benefits Canadian scientists working in these fields.