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Seminar: Air-Sea Heat and CO2 Fluxes in the Southern Ocean

April 1, 2014 @ 10:15 a.m.

ChuanLi Jiang (Research Scientist, ESR)

Southern Ocean modulates the global climate system through air-sea heat and CO2 fluxes which are both associated with the sea surface temperature and the surface winds. In this talk, I will focus on two key factors controlling the accuracy of the air-sea heat and CO2 fluxes in the Southern Ocean: the air-sea eddy-resolving turbulent (latent and sensible) heat fluxes and the surface water partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2). In the first part of the talk, I will examine the spatial scales of the turbulent heat fluxes determined from the underway high-resolution shipboard measurements in the Drake Passage. These length scales will later be used to evaluate the performance of the recent high-resolution air-sea heat flux products. In the second part of the talk, I will examine the variations of the oceanic pCO2 using both in-situ observations and the newly available CMIP5 Carbon/Climate coupled models. In particular, I will focus on the role of physical processes in the accuracy of the surface water pCO2. In the end, I will touch on the implications and future directions of these two topics.

ChuanLi Jiang