My research efforts to date have combined both theoretical and observational aspects of geophysical fluid dynamics. Specific topics that I have investigated include: large-scale ocean dynamics and thermodynamics; geophysical waves and flow stability (spectral, formal, and nonlinear); Hamiltonian geophysical fluid dynamics; nonintegrable Hamiltonian dynamics; passive tracer transport and mixing ...

[1] Several recent papers have demonstrated a decrease in atmospheric pCO2 resulting from barriers to communication between the deep sea and the atmosphere in the Southern Ocean. Stephens and Keeling [2000] decreased pCO2 by increasing Antarctic sea ice in a seven-box model of the world ocean, and Toggweiler [1999] showed a similar response to Southern Ocean stratification. In box models the pC...

Atmospheres and oceans are mostly incompressible and turbulent. The experience of the meteorological community with modeling such flows is based primarily on centered in time and space (CTS) methods. Our experience applying nonoscillatory forward in time methods (NFT) to a range of flows have revealed some unexpected benefits specifically in the area of modeling geophysical turbulence; where, b...

We investigate the individual and joint decadal variability of Southern Ocean state quantities, such as the strength of the Ross and Weddell Gyres, Drake Passage transport, and sea ice area, using the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research UK Chemistry and Aerosols (NIWAUKCA) model and CMIP5 models. Variability in these quantities is stimulated by strong deep reaching convective e...

It was a huge honour to be asked to give the Marshall Rosenbluth Memorial Lecture. Having never worked on plasma physics, though, I also feel some diffidence! The closest I’ve ever come has been involvement in some peculiar MHD problems that promise an improved understanding of the solar tachocline — more about confining a magnetic field within a plasma than a plasma within a magnetic field. Be...