Research Interests
FUNDAMENTALS of CLIMATE DYNAMICS
Can the climate system sustain multiple equilibria? Could life survive on an Exoplanet with high-obliquity? How changes in the continents influence climate.
This is investigation into some basic aspect of climate. This work is largely based on idealized experiments with a numerical model of the coupled ocean-atmosphere-sea ice system. In this way, we avoid the complications arising from a realistic representation of geography/land-sea distributions and focus on the coupling of the two fluids in its most elemental form.
OCEAN MESOSCALE AND SUBMESOSCALE EDDIES
One of my favorite topics. I'm interested in the dynamics of ocean eddies, their effect on the large scale dynamics (how and how much heat and other tracers are transported by eddies?). How should we parameterize the effect of eddies in climate models? Many applications require climate models where eddies in the ocean cannot be explicitly resolved.
Atlantic Overturning Circulation
We spend a lot of efforts studying the variability of the Atlantic Overturning circulation, and how it impacts climate. But, funnily, we don't quite understand why there is an Atlantic overturning in the first place. Or why there isn't one in the Pacific.
Most explanations relate in one way or another to the fact that the Atlantic is saltier than the Pacific, but we do not have a consensus on a theory. See our review here.
Waters are much older in the Pacific than in the Atlantic. Some water parcels in the Pacific have not been to the surface for almost 15 centuries.
Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, monsoon and energy
The Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), where we get the most precipitation on Earth, sits on average about 5 degrees North of the Equator. This narrow band of intense rain has a disproportionate societal impact relative to its size, influencing water availability, agriculture, disease spread, etc.
Monsoons are not understood to be regional manifestation of the ITCZ migration with seasons.
I am interested in how energetic arguments can help understand the displacement of the ITCZ to the north of the Equator, but also how they can clarify the response of the ITCZ to climate change