PhD Studentship: Submesoscale ocean flows and processes in the Southern Ocean

The Southern Ocean is the primary sink for excess anthropogenic heat and carbon, placing this region at the forefront of the Earth's climate system. Understanding the Southern Ocean circulation is therefore crucial for improving climate projections and predicting future climate trajectories. Prominent features in the Southern Ocean are large-scale eddies (10 km—100 km & months—years). They transport warm waters from subtropical to subpolar regions, effecting a meridional heat transport of particular importance for the global ocean circulation, heat and carbon capture, and the regional sea-ice dynamics. However, eddy dynamics is complex and involves interactions with smaller-scale oceanic flows (

Recent studies have demonstrated that these cross-scale interactions channel an energy pathway from small to large scales, energising the large-scale eddy field and increasing its heat transport by twofold. This project focuses on the processes underpinning small-to-large-scale interactions and energy transfers in the Southern Ocean.

The student will:

1. identify the dominant interaction processes using state-of-the-art numerical simulations (developed at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA, and the National Oceanography Centre, UK) and
2. ground their findings against observations (using satellite altimetry and in situ observations collected by BAS, including moorings, gliders, and ship-based observations).

Depending on the student's interests, different dynamical regimes can be investigated, with contrasting levels of eddy activity and areas both influenced and unaffected by sea-ice, with the possibility to use artificial intelligence techniques to optimise the observations coverage and resolution. The project offers training in ocean modelling and sea-going experience (NOC), sensor piloting, and possibly the opportunity to contribute to fieldwork in Antarctica (BAS). Visits to Scripps Institution of Oceanography (US) may also be supported through DTP funding, providing access to one of the world's leading oceanographic research centres.

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