Category Archives: Oceans

Two Flavours of Ocean Temperature Change and the Implication for Reconstructing the History of Ocean Warming

Posted on 13 March, 2023 by danaallen

Introducing Excess and Redistributed Temperatures.  By: Quran Wu Monitoring and understanding ocean heat content change is an essential task of climate science because the ocean stores over 90% of extra heat that is trapped in the Earth system. Ocean warming … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, Climate change, Climate modelling, Oceans | Leave a comment

Oceanic Influences On Arctic And Antarctic Sea Ice

Posted on 14 November, 2022 by danaallen

By: Jake Aylmer The futures of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice are difficult to pin down in part due to climate model uncertainty. Recent work reveals different ocean behaviours that have a critical impact on sea ice, highlighting a potential … Continue reading →

Posted in Antarctic, Arctic, Climate, Climate change, Climate modelling, Cryosphere, Oceans, Polar | Leave a comment

Outlook For The Upcoming UK Winter

Posted on 4 October, 2022 by danaallen

By: Christopher O’Reilly In this post I discuss the outlook for the 2022/23 winter from a UK perspective: what do the forecasts predict and what physical drivers might influence the upcoming winter?  An important winter  The price of utilities has … Continue reading →

Posted in Atmospheric circulation, Climate, Climate modelling, ENSO, North Atlantic, Oceans, Seasonal forecasting, Stratosphere, Teleconnections | Leave a comment

Density Surfaces In The Oceans

Posted on 4 July, 2022 by danaallen

By: Remi Tailleux Below the mixed layer, shielded from direct interaction with the atmosphere, ocean fluid parcels are only slowly modified by turbulent mixing processes and become strongly constrained to move along density surfaces of some kind, called `isopycnal’ surfaces. … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, Fluid-dynamics, Oceanography, Oceans | Leave a comment

A Different Kind Of Turbulence

Posted on 13 June, 2022 by danaallen

By Miguel Teixeira It might be thought that turbulence is essentially the same everywhere. However, its mixing efficiency depends not only on its intensity (as might be expected intuitively), but also on more subtle properties, such as its anisotropy (which … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundary layer, Climate, Environmental physics, Fluid-dynamics, Oceans, Turbulence, Waves | Leave a comment

Has The Atlantic Ocean Circulation Been In Long-term Decline?

Posted on 2 May, 2022 by danaallen

By: Jon Robson A number of recent high-profile studies have strongly suggested that an important part of the North Atlantic Ocean circulation – the AMOC – has declined and that it is edging closer to a tipping point. Such a … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, Climate change, Climate modelling, North Atlantic, Oceans | Leave a comment

Antarctic Sea Ice: The Global Climate Driver Of The South

Posted on 19 April, 2022 by danaallen

By: Holly Ayres In the Northern Hemisphere, our closest region of sea ice (not to be confused with land ice) is the Arctic, a vast region of frozen ocean at the North Pole. Antarctica, a huge mountainous land mass at … Continue reading →

Posted in Antarctic, Arctic, Atmospheric circulation, Climate, Climate change, Climate modelling, Cryosphere, Oceans, Polar | Leave a comment

Tropical rainfall and sea surface temperature link could improve forecasts

Posted on 2 November, 2020 by danaallen

By: Chris Holloway  and the University of Reading Press Office.  Tropical rainfall, averaged on seasonal time scales, is influenced far more strongly by nearby sea temperatures in the real world than in almost all climate simulations, scientists have found, paving … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, Oceans, Weather forecasting | Tagged | Leave a comment

Deep Water Formation In The Mediterranean Sea

Posted on 21 September, 2020 by danaallen

By: Giorgio Graffino “The Mediterranean Sea is a small-scale ocean”, as my old teacher used to tell me. All right, that was probably a bit exaggerated. Still, it’s true that the Mediterranean Sea provides an almost unique environment to study … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, Fluid-dynamics, Oceanography, Oceans | Leave a comment

Sea Surface Temperature Climate Data Record

Posted on 25 May, 2020 by danaallen

By: Owen Embury Oceans cover over 70% of the Earth’s surface and knowing its temperature is crucial for understanding both weather and climate. Historically, sea surface temperatures (SSTs) have been measured in situ – from ships and automated buoys – … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, Oceans, Remote sensing | Leave a comment