Related talks@cam

The ocean’s circulation plays a pivotal role in Earth’s climate system, with its changes during climate transitions being of critical importance. This study, grounded in the principle of dynamical similarity, employs Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) in an idealized setup to dissect the complexities of ocean circulation, with a particular focus on the North Atlantic and the role of buoyancy and wind in shaping the hydrological cycle.

We begin with a simple system—a non-rotating ocean forced by a single scalar—then gradually introduce complexity by adding constant/variable rotation, wind forcing, and a second scalar. Surprisingly, our results show the spontaneous formation of gyres and a western boundary current, along with full-depth overturning, even without the introduction of wind. Wind forcing further localizes upwelling near the western boundary current and primarily strengthens the gyres while having less influence on overturning circulation. With the introduction of a second scalar (salinity), our results become more representative of the real ocean, reproducing key features such as mode water formation, mid-latitude deeper thermocline structures, and polar haloclines, both with and without wind forcing. Our DNS framework is well-suited for resolving convection processes, including diffusive convection near the poles and salt fingering in mid-latitudes, both of which are crucial for establishing mixed layers and pycnoclines in these regions.

A key highlight of our study is capturing ocean circulation across multiple scales—from basin-scale overturning and gyres to mesoscale eddies, submesoscale dynamics, and millimeter-scale convection. These multiscale interactions regulate heat, salt, and tracer transport. Our highresolution approach explicitly resolves the interplay between large-scale circulation and small-scale turbulent mixing, offering deeper insights into ocean stratification, ventilation, and buoyancy-driven flows, providing critical insights for forecasting the evolving dynamics of the North Atlantic.

Speaker: Bishakh Gayen, University of Melbourne
Friday 04 April 2025, 13:00-14:00
Venue: BAS Seminar Room 1.
Series: British Antarctic Survey - Polar Oceans seminar series; organiser: Dr Birgit Rogalla.

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Wed 18 Jun 14:00: Title to be confirmed

Fri, 28/03/2025 - 09:39

Title to be confirmed

Abstract not available

Speaker: Speaker to be confirmed
Wednesday 18 June 2025, 14:00-15:00
Venue: BAS Seminar Room 1.
Series: British Antarctic Survey - Polar Oceans seminar series; organiser: Dr Birgit Rogalla.

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Wed 07 May 14:00: Title to be confirmed

Fri, 28/03/2025 - 09:38

Title to be confirmed

Abstract not available

Speaker: Speaker to be confirmed
Wednesday 07 May 2025, 14:00-15:00
Venue: BAS Seminar Room 1.
Series: British Antarctic Survey - Polar Oceans seminar series; organiser: Dr Birgit Rogalla.

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Wed 04 Jun 14:00: Title to be confirmed

Fri, 28/03/2025 - 09:38

Title to be confirmed

Abstract not available

Speaker: Speaker to be confirmed
Wednesday 04 June 2025, 14:00-15:00
Venue: BAS Seminar Room 1.
Series: British Antarctic Survey - Polar Oceans seminar series; organiser: Dr Birgit Rogalla.

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Tue 06 May 14:30: Big Picture Talk: Bhopal 40 years on - What have we learned?

Thu, 27/03/2025 - 12:00

Big Picture Talk: Bhopal 40 years on - What have we learned?

Our departmental seminar series, Bigger Picture Talks, runs throughout the academic year, inviting thought-leaders from across the world driving significant advances in our impact areas of energy, health and sustainability to share and discuss their work with us.

This talk will hear from alumni Professor Fiona Macleod, Professor of Process Safety at the University of Sheffield, who will talk about safety in the chemical engineering industry, using the worst disaster in history as a lens for why safety matters.

On the night of 2 and 3 December 1984 a toxic gas release from the Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India caused thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of life-changing injuries. Forty years later, the rusting factory equipment still towers above buried hazardous waste in the abandoned factory. I visited the site of the former Union Carbide site in Bhopal India to try to understand what went so horribly wrong.

1. What caused the worst accident in the history of the chemical industry? 2. Why was the accident never properly investigated? 3. What can we learn about process safety from revisiting the accident? 4. Why has no clean-up been undertaken in 40 years?

Speaker: Professor Fiona Macleod
Tuesday 06 May 2025, 14:30-15:15
Venue: Lecture Theatre 1, Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, West Cambridge Site.
Series: Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology; organiser: ejm94.

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Wed 23 Apr 14:00: Ocean dynamics in the Ross Ice Shelf cavity from in situ observations

Thu, 27/03/2025 - 09:29

Ocean dynamics in the Ross Ice Shelf cavity from in situ observations

The future response of ice shelves to climate through ocean warming is a key unknown for climate projections, especially global sea level rise. The Ross Ice Shelf ocean cavity is one of the least observed regions in the ocean, with its broad circulation patterns primarily inferred from remotely sensed estimates of tides, bathymetry, and melt rates. I aim to advance our understanding of the ocean cavity under the Ross Ice Shelf – the southern-most and largest-by area of all Earth’s ice shelves. To achieve this, I analyzed a multi-year hydrographic moored timeseries from the central Ross Ice Shelf cavity (80◦39.497′S, 174◦27.678′E). These data help address three key processes: (i) the general circulation; (ii) the appearance and impact of baroclinic eddy events; and (iii) tidal modulation of the ice-ocean boundary layer structure and the implications for ice melting. In terms of circulation and the inter-annual changes, stronger melting/refreezing occurred between late September 2019 to late December 2019, which is linked to the inter-annual sea ice production in the Ross Ice Shelf Polynya. Notably, cold-water interleaving in the mid-water column exhibits distinct seasonality. An analysis of baroclinic eddies identifies coherent structures that are around 22 km in diameter with a velocity scale of between 0.8 and 1.8 cm/s. The thermohaline structure of the eddies suggests that they have the potential to entrain High Salinity Shelf Water from the benthic water column to the mid-water column. On the question of tidal modulation of the ice shelf-ocean interaction, the results suggest that tides modulate the melt rate by altering the boundary layer structure over a spring-neap cycle. These new findings demonstrate the rich variability within the Ross Ice Shelf ocean cavity, ranging from large interannual-seasonal scales, through to multi-week eddy scales and then down to tidal and mixing timescales.

Speaker: Yingpu Xiahou, University of Auckland
Wednesday 23 April 2025, 14:00-15:00
Venue: BAS Seminar Room 330b.
Series: British Antarctic Survey - Polar Oceans seminar series; organiser: Dr Birgit Rogalla.

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Wed 24 Jun 14:00: External Seminar - Sabine Zachgo TBC

Wed 29 Apr 14:00: External Seminar - Michael Rassig TBC

Wed 25 Mar 14:00: External Seminar - Bénédicte Charrier TBC

Wed 25 Feb 14:00: External Seminar - Magdalena Bezanilla TBC

Wed 29 Oct 14:00: External Seminar - Christian Fankhauser TBC

Wed 28 Jan 14:00: External Seminar - Christine Faulkner TBC

Wed 23 Jul 14:00: External Seminar - Dr Oswaldo Valdes-Lopez TBC

Wed 30 Apr 14:00: Unravelling the complexity of root stem cell niche regulation through multi-scale models

Thu 22 May 11:30: TBC

Wed 30 Apr 14:00: External Seminar - Monica Garcia Gomez TBC

Fri 04 Apr 13:00: Deep convection and ocean overturning

Wed 18 Jun 14:00: Title to be confirmed

Wed 07 May 14:00: Title to be confirmed

Wed 04 Jun 14:00: Title to be confirmed

Tue 06 May 14:30: Big Picture Talk: Bhopal 40 years on - What have we learned?

Wed 23 Apr 14:00: Ocean dynamics in the Ross Ice Shelf cavity from in situ observations

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