Research

What role do surface wave-induced drifts play in the evolution of submesoscale fronts?

Earth system balance is contingent on the ocean's communication with the atmosphere and its ability to store and move matter and energy. Both surface gravity waves and submesoscale currents facilitate the necessary air-sea fluxes and upper ocean transports to achieve this balance, but their effects are not mutually exclusive. Interactions between the two have unknown implications for estimating exchanges across the ocean-atmosphere interface. Airborne observations of the interactions of submesoscale currents and nonlinear wave breaking processes that permit air-sea fluxes are the foci of my current work.