Narragansett Bay Campus, Corless Auditorium (Watkins Building) View map Free Event

215 South Ferry Road, Narragansett, RI

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Join us for a Physical Oceanography Seminar from Dr. Xiaozhou Ruan from MIT titled, "Oceanic bottom boundary layers and abyssal ocean circulation."

Abstract: The abyssal ocean stores and exchanges vast amounts of carbon and heat with the atmosphere and is thought to regulate Earth’s climate on centennial to millennial timescales. However, a few puzzles remain in the current understanding of the abyssal ocean circulation due to the limited observations made in the deep ocean, including the closure of its kinetic energy budget and the upwelling pathways of the abyssal bottom waters. In an effort to address these two puzzles, this talk focuses on the bottom boundary layer theories and their roles in influencing the large-scale abyssal ocean circulation. In the first part of the talk, I will propose a parameterization to more accurately quantify the friction and bottom drag experienced by ocean currents over sloping bottoms in the deep ocean. In the second part of the talk, I will describe the circulation patterns and different mechanisms to maintain stratification near mid-ocean ridges and ridge-flank canyons, with implications for the upwelling limb of the overturning circulation.

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