We would like to end this year by looking back and thanking you! In July we finally launched the Ocean Sciences blog and joined the EGU blogsphere. Since then we had nine blog posts. Thank you to all the great guest authors we had this year. After the initial Ocean Sciences blog team of Gwyn …[Read More]
Ocean Sciences
Life as a “dry” oceanographer – studying Earth’s oceans from your laptop
I didn’t always know that I would become an oceanographer when I grew up, but I knew I would be doing ‘Science’. I was born and raised in Paris, France. While growing up, I was always interested in Science, from watching documentaries about the universe or nature, to attending science events at museums. While Science …[Read More]
Career Progression – from Academia to Industry
During the summer Liam Brannigan contributed to an EGU careers workshop. Liam has had a diverse career, following his masters in maths at Edinburgh University he worked for several years as an investment consultant. In 2010 however, he fancied a change and embarked on a career in physical oceanography, completing his MSc at Bangor University …[Read More]
Why you (yes, you!) should take part in a hackathon
Back in August, I attended Oceanhackweek 2020. As an oceanographer by trade and free software nerd by heart, I loved the idea of an event that combined the two. I looked forward to learning from other oceanographers and coders, and perhaps giving something back to the free software community. What is a hackweek/hackathon? If you …[Read More]
Satellite data for ocean reanalysis
To understand the fundamental behaviour of the ocean, and any changes it’s undergoing, we need to know what the ocean is doing today, and on each day in the recent past. We can do this by creating reanalyses, which use data assimilation to combine state-of-the-art models with observations. The focus is often on ocean physics, …[Read More]
Eurec4a: Tales from the Tropics
As many seagoing oceanographers find themselves on land for the foreseeable future, we’ve decided to share a tale of a research cruise to fill that ship-shaped void. Back in January 2020, four research vessels ventured out into the Tropical North Atlantic as part of the Eurec4a and ATOMIC campaigns. Eurec4a’s aim: to investigate the couplings between …[Read More]
How Climate Models helped uncover the mechanisms behind the North Atlantic Warming Hole
One of the only regions that have been observed to cool over the past century is the North Atlantic cold blob just south of Greenland. In our recent paper, we analyse the cold blob or “warming hole” and the processes that contribute to its creation and evolution. While sea surface temperature has been reliably observed, …[Read More]
Research Cruise in times of COVID-19
While the whole world is on stand-by we are in the middle of the North Atlantic and I want to explain you, why! During those crazy times cruise planning also slightly changes. The original plan was to depart and arrive back in Reykjavik which would have only included a short transit to our research area, …[Read More]
Why do mesoscale eddies disappear at ocean western boundaries?
In the ocean, mesoscale eddies are everywhere. In fact, about 90% of the ocean’s kinetic energy is contained within these ubiquitous, ~100 km swirling vortices. We know how these eddies form, through a process known as baroclinic instability, where density surfaces are tilted too steeply and become unstable. What remains unclear however, is what happens …[Read More]
OceanTalk with Frédéric Le Moigne
Frédéric Le Moigne has been awarded the 2020 Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award for the Division of Ocean Sciences and he agreed to be interviewed for our first blog post on the new Ocean Sciences blog. Frédéric can you tell us about your background and education? I was born and raised on the Atlantic coast, …[Read More]