It has been a very active time for the Climate Variability and Teleconnections Research Program in terms of research and engagement activities right across the team, including two expeditions - one drilling coral cores in the tropics and another going south to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
In 2016, Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes researchers and colleagues measured Southern Ocean INPs for the first time in over four decades. The numbers of these particles were extremely low compared to other oceans and 100 times lower than the previous Southern Ocean measurement program conducted in the 1970s.
CLEX researchers found that counter-clockwise rotating eddies in the Southern Ocean mix the ocean deeper in winter, allowing more nutrients to enter their interiors, leading to higher productivity. This work is important because eddy productivity plays a significant role in the exchange of carbon between the ocean and the atmosphere.
In this project the vacation scholar will use models, observations and theory to better understand the processes driving ocean heat uptake in the Southern Ocean, with particular applications to sea-level rise.
For 67 days from early March to mid May, Taimoor Sohail was aboard the US Antarctic Program icebreaker, the Nathaniel B. Palmer, on a scientific expedition from Hobart to Punta Arenas in Chile. It was relentless but very rewarding work, scientifically and personally.
World-first modelling research– which used several million CPU hours in Australia’s fastest supercomputer, Raijin, and ran calculations non-stop for over a year – has revealed the Southern Ocean mixes water between the depths and surface far more easily than previously thought.