Seminar Speaker – Stuart Bishop, NCState University, MEAS-Marine Science, Assistant Professor

Seminar Title – North Atlantic Synoptic-Mesoscale Air-Sea Interaction

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Abstract – This talk will be an overview of the time and space scale dependence of coupling between upper ocean heat content and turbulent heat fluxes with a focus on the North Atlantic region, however the results are general to other western boundary current regions. In recent years it has been revealed that the ocean is not passive to atmospheric forcing in the vicinity of oceanic fronts where mesoscale and submesoscale processes dominate the variability. The ocean at monthly and longer time scales is largely in control of the coupling, highlighting the ocean mesoscale in this interaction. There will be a discussion of the impacts of this coupling on ocean eddy-mean flow interactions and potential avenues for parameterization in coarse resolution climate models. The final topic of the talk will expand upon our understanding of air-sea interaction at monthly and longer times scales and delve into submonthly time scales with a process study approach to atmosphere synoptic explosive cyclogenesis events and their role in air-sea interaction with the oceanic mesoscale.