AOML scientists, Hosmay Lopez and his colleagues used observations as well as model simulations of 20th Century climate and 21st Century projections to show that the occurrence of heat waves in the U.S. are on the rise and will continue to do so in the coming decades. This research was recently published in Nature Climate Change.
Scientists strategically deployed the gliders during the peak of hurricane season, from July through November 2017, collecting data in regions where hurricanes commonly travel and intensify. The gliders continually gathered temperature and salinity profile data, generating more than 4,000 profiles to enhance scientific understanding of the air-sea interaction processes that drive hurricane intensification.
In a recent study published in Weather and Forecasting,* AOML researchers and their colleagues used NOAA’s HWRFHYCOM operational hurricane forecast model to quantify the impact of assimilating underwater glider data and other ocean observations into the intensity forecasts of Hurricane Gonzalo (2014). Gonzalo formed in the tropical North Atlantic east of the Lesser Antilles on October […]
One of the most challenging questions in global climate change studies today is how quickly, or if, heat that accumulates within the Earth system penetrates into the deep ocean. Scientists with the University of Miami (UM), AOML, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) recently tackled this question by using a combination of present-day satellite and in situ observing systems to study the distribution of heat in the oceans.
A recent paper published in the Journal of Climate led by PHOD researchers Hosmay Lopez, Shenfu Dong, Sang-Ki Lee, and Gustavo Goni provides a physical mechanism on how low frequency variability of the South Atlantic Meridional Heat Transport (SAMHT) associated with the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation ( AMOC) may influence decadal variability of atmospheric circulation and monsoons. This is the first attempt to link the South Atlantic Overturning Circulation variability to weather and climate.
The Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) plays a critical role in global and regional heat and freshwater budgets. Recent studies have suggested the possibility of a southern origin of the anomalous MOC and meridional heat transport (MHT) in the Atlantic, through changes in the transport of warm/salty waters from the Indian Ocean into the South Atlantic basin. This possibility clearly manifests the importance of understanding the South Atlantic MOC (SAMOC). Observations in the South Atlantic have been historically sparse both in space and time compared to the North Atlantic. To enhance our understanding of the MOC and MHT variability in the South Atlantic, a new methodology is recently published to estimate the MOC/MHT by combining sea surface height measurements from satellite altimetry and in situ measurements (Dong et al., 2015).
Hurricanes are known to drive the cooling of surface waters as they travel over the ocean, leaving a cooling swath where they pass. The sea surface cooling is mostly caused by mixing forced by the strong winds of the hurricane, which occurs as the mixture of warm surface waters with colder waters that can be as deep as 100 m below the surface.
Scientists at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory are in the Caribbean to launch two underwater gliders from a vessel off Puerto Rico to collect temperature and other weather data to improve hurricane forecasting.One of the gliders will collect observations in the Caribbean Sea, and another in the North Atlantic Ocean. They are positioned to operate over the next six months (June-November) collecting data in areas where hurricanes are common and areas where there is a lack of environmental data.
Researchers from PhOD and from the University of Cape Town used temperature data from the AX25 repeat XBT transect (from South Africa to Antarctica) in combination with other hydrographic and satellite observations to report a mechanism by which local winds alter the structure of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current flow south of Africa.
Results from collaborative research conducted by AOML and NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) in response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, were recently published in Continental Shelf Research (December, 2013). PhOD oceanographers R. Smith, E. Johns, G. Goni, J. Trinanes, and R. Lumpkin, in collaboration with other researchers at AOML (M. Wood, C. Kelble, and S. Cummings) and SEFSC (J. Lamkin and S. Privoznik) report on the surface and subsurface connectivity across the eastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) during July 2010.
