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I study the dynamics of oceans and how oceans regulate Earth's climate. This could be to understand past, present or future climates, and I occasionally think about other planets than Earth. One of my main interests is the dynamics of ocean eddies and how to represent their effects in climate models.

News:

I recently (Jan 2020) had the pleasure to visit the Met department at the University of Dhaka. Working on setting up a fluid lab there and an opportunity to meeting great people.

I recently (Jan 2020) had the pleasure to visit the Met department at the University of Dhaka. Working on setting up a fluid lab there and an opportunity to meeting great people.

I recently (Jan 2020) had the pleasure to visit the Met department at the University of Dhaka. Working on setting up a fluid lab there and an opportunity to meeting great people.

Why do we bother with equations?

Climate sciences increasingly rely on statistical methods, and analysis of climate simulations, and less and less on theoretical work. This blog reminds us what theory (fluid dynamics here) provides that statistics do not. This is illustrated by the simple case of wind-driven gyre dynamics.

The recent work led by Jake Aylmer (in press in Nature Communications) shows that theory is still very much needed to make progress and explain correlations.

However, theoretical work is increasingly left for the next study. Funding agencies push for project with faster pathways to impact. Fewer PhD students are trained to use theory. Are we creating a long term problem for our field?​​

Review on the Hadley cell in a changing climate

A manuscript  led by Prof Lionello from the University of Salento reviewing our knowledge of the response of the Hadley  circulation to climate change, just appeared in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Paper in Open Access here.

Welcome to 2023

2022 ended well with a paper in Sciences Advances led by Fabien Roquet from the University of Gothenburgh. The paper explores how the molecular properties of water influence our climate. 

A summary here . Full paper here.

Impact of oceanic and atmospheric heat transport on the sea ice edge latitude

Recently accepted in Journal of Climate, a study lead by Jake Aylmer (PhD).

It shows that the sea ice edge latitude is about twice as sensitive to the oceanic heat transport as to the atmospheric heat transport. Interestingly, the relative importance of the sensitivities is controlled by atmospheric radiative parameters.

A summary here (blog).

Full paper here.

Recent publications in times of confinement

  • Rheinlaender et al.: an exploration of the impact of the Greenland-Scotland Ridge on the climate

  • Bulgin et al.: an analysis of the SST variability using a new high-resolution satellite product covering the last 30 years

 

  • Moreno-Chamarro et al.: in the context of DO events, which dynamics sets the lagged Southern Hemiphere response to an abrupt Northern Hemisphere warming?

Check the Publication page

Visit of Dhaka University

I recently (Jan 2020) had the pleasure to visit the Met department at the University of Dhaka. Working on setting up a fluid lab there and an opportunity to meeting great people.

2018 starts with good news from NERC

The project OUTCROP has been funded by NERC recently (PI: Remi Tailleux). This project will look at  the processes in ocean heat uptake using a isopycnal framework.

Advert for a 3-y post-doc position in Reading  to appear in the coming months.

Snowball  Earth in the media

The science blog of the French newspaper Le Monde reports on our review about the Neoprotozoic Snowball Earth. In case you don't speak French , you can read the review in Sciences Advances

 

Why is there an overturning in the Atlantic but not in the Pacific?

Our review on this topic has just been accepted in Annual  Reviews of Earth and Planetary Sciences. To be published mid-2018.

 

Global ocean heat transport dominated by heat export from the tropical Pacific

An attempt to separate the Ocean heat Transport into an ‘effective’ ocean heat transport (associated with air-sea heat fluxes) and internal ocean heat loops (that obscure the interpretation of measurements). One of the key outcomes is that inter-basin heat exchanges (through for example Drake passage, Indonesia) play a relatively minor role in the global heat balance.

Paper just appeared online in Nature Geoscience here.

The overall objective of SO-CHIC (8M Euros, 4 years, 15 institutions) is to understand and quantify variability of heat and carbon budgets in the Southern Ocean through an investigation of the key processes controlling exchanges between the atmosphere, ocean and sea ice using a combination of observational and modelling approaches.

Two post-doc positions (sub-mesoscale ocean dynamics, climate dynamics)  in Reading will be advertised (start date late 2019).

Multiple equilibrium of climate and Ice Ages

Could Glacial-Interglacial cycles represent transitions between multiple equilibrium of Earth's climate?

As the dynamics of these cycles remains hotly debated, we provide support for such a connection in a GRL paper (Sept 2018) We show that multiple states obtained in a coupled climate model show striking similarities with the present (interglacial) climate and what we know of the Last Glacial Maximum (21,000 years ago). 

About me

I am an Associate Professor in the Meteorology department at the University of Reading.

 

After graduating from ENSTA (Paris) with an engineering degree, I did my Ph.D at LODYC (now LOCEAN) at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris under the supervision of Claude Frankignoul. In 2002, I joined John Marshall's team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, first as a Post-doc then as a Research Scientist.

 

In 2013, I moved to the UK and integrated  the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading as a Lecturer.

ABOUT ME

Credit: Romuald Giulivo

contact

FIND ME

University of Reading

Department of Meteorology

Meteorology building, Room 1U10

Whiteknights Road, Earley gate

Reading , RG6 6ET, UK

d.g.ferreira@reading.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0)118 378 7997

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