The El Niño Southern Oscillation is the largest driver of interannual climate variability, impacting weather extremes worldwide. Key to understanding ENSO is the role of diabatic ocean processes such as surface fluxes and diffusive mixing, that control how heat is transferred from the atmosphere to the ocean and into the interior.
Using novel techniques developed by the supervisory team, the candidate will evaluate the role of diabatic processes in the ENSO cycle, and how they may change in the future, using new observations and state-of-the-art model simulations. This research is critical to improving our ability to project future climate change.
The ideal student for this project will be one with an outstanding track record in quantitative sciences, particularly mathematics and physics, or with strong vocational training in fluid dynamics and engineering. Advanced analytical skills would be ideal, and it would be advantageous for the student to have developed excellent programming skills (for example using python, Matlab, C++ and Fortran). The student might even have already run ocean circulation models and analysed 3D ocean data in either advanced modelling systems or observations. But above all else, they would have a strong grounding in mathematics and/or physics / fluid dynamics.