CARBON: Scale Sensitivities of CO2 Fluxes in the Southern Ocean
Job Description: 3 MSc or PhD as well as 2 Post Doctorate opportunities in the SOCCO carbon project
Introduction:This project is motivated by the core hypothesis that the magnitude and phasing of the seasonal cycle of air –sea exchange CO2 exchange, and other carbon fluxes, are sensitive to the interaction of fine spatial (meso & sub-mesoscale) in the ocean and temporal (seasonal & sub-seasonal) scales of forcing from the atmosphere. How these scales interact is not well understood and poorly represented in Earth System Models, which may contribute to weakening the climate sensitivity of the seasonal cycle of modeled ocean carbon fluxes. Addressing this is an urgent research challenge in order to improve the confidence in long term climate projections.
Work Package 1:SOSCEX III - Observing and analyzing the scale sensitivities of CO2 fluxes in the Southern Ocean and how they influence the characteristics of the seasonal cycle. The hypothesis is that the biological pump dominates the CO2 flux characteristics in the Sub-Antarctic Zone (SAZ) and ocean physics does so south of the Polar Front Zone (PFZ).
Requirements: Honors or Masters in oceanography, physics, mathematics, chemistry or engineering