Research themes
Saildrone transits through the Gulf Stream region, making measurements for the calculation of air-sea CO2 exchange (from Nickford et al., 2022).
Ocean Circulation and Biogeochemistry
Ocean circulation creates an ever-changing environment for marine life. In turn, marine organisms alter ocean and atmospheric chemistry, and these changes feedback on the organisms themselves. The study of these interactions and feedbacks is known as biogeochemistry. Our research considers how ocean circulation, from mesoscale eddies to western boundary currents like the Gulf Stream, shape the living ocean, and how this marine life influences ocean chemistry and planetary climate.
Currently, we are pursuing research aimed at understanding the role of Western Boundary Currents in regulating the uptake of carbon from the atmosphere. We have worked with Saildrone vehicles to observe air-sea exchange in the extreme Gulf Stream environment. And we are quantifying the transport of oxygen and carbon in the boundary currents of the Labrador Sea by adding sensors to the O-SNAP moorings.
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Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal
Rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions is the key to stabilizing the global climate at levels that minimize harm. With greenhouse gas emissions lowered to a small fraction of what they are today (approximately 40 billion tons per year in 2022), removing carbon dioxide can help achieve net zero and/or remove legacy emissions after overshooting society's climate goals. We work on understanding how to verify that such interventions are safe and efficacious, with a focus on ocean alkalinity enhancement
Using knowledge of the carbonate system in the Amazon river plume, Mu et al. (2023) estimated the impact of the hypothetical addition of alkalinity in the river on ocean carbon uptake.
Observing ocean circulation variability and its consequences
The advent of satellite observations of sea surface height, temperature, and salinity, the emergence of robotic platforms for monitoring ocean properties, and continued research conducted aboard oceanographic research vessels and from moored platforms, now provides an unprecedented and transformative view of the ocean circulation and its variability. Our goal is to combine these data sources to inform our understanding of oceanic variability as a driver of climate and ecological variability.
Changes in satellite-observed Sea Surface Height at the Tail of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland precedes rapid warming of the Northeast US and Canadian shelf and slope (Gonçalves Neto et al. 2021)
Various aspects of climate under different CO2 forcing, consistent with 1.5°C and 2°C of warming in 2100 (from Palter et al., 2018).
Ocean Circulation and the Climate of the Future
We use climate models to understand how ocean circulation responds to and feeds back on global climate. For instance, our work revealed that the response of the large scale ocean circulation to global warming helps slow the pace of transient climate change through feedbacks involving clouds and sea ice (Trossman et al., 2016). This work motivated a follow-up aimed at understanding how the climate system differs at 1.5°C of warming if we overshoot that goal and then achieve it through carbon removal from the atmosphere, compared to if we were to achieve it by swift emissions reductions (Palter et al., 2018 - see example figure to the left).