[Translate to English:] Kopf Illustration (Hintergrund: Bild von Großrechnern; im Vordergrund verschiedene Grafiken und Visualisierungen von Modell-Daten))

Ocean Dynamics

The dynamics of ocean circulation is of central importance for natural and human-induced changes to global climate as well as to regional marine ecology. Ocean currents are highly variable as a combined result of atmospheric forcing and internal ocean instability processes; in many areas they are dominated by “mesoscale” eddy motions with dimensions of 50 km or less.

Goals

The main goal of our research is to facilitate projections of the future evolution of regional ocean properties in response to changing climate conditions: by understanding the dynamical causes and mechanisms of ocean transport variability on inter-annual to multi-decadal time scales; and by identifying the critical processes that need to be captured in global climate models.

Methodology

As a main tool of research we conduct numerical “experiments”: a hierarchy of regional- to global-scale models of ocean circulation, with high spatial resolution to capture mesoscale ocean currents and eddies, is used to simulate observed ocean variability during the last ~50 years, and to investigate the mechanisms of the oceanic response to atmospheric forcing.

Sea Surface Temperature (SST) with shading from Sea Surface Height (SSH) overlayed with Sea Ice Coverage from VIKING20X simulation (http://oceanrep.geomar.de/44540/).

Topics

Ocean Models & HPC

A hierarachy of global and regional ocean models to simulate the velocities and hydrography of the ocean.

Data, Analysis & Data Science

The analysis of large amounts of model data from a range of simulations requires the use of modern programming and computer techniques, as well as data science methodologies.

Team

List of Ocean Dynamics staff members.

Research Projects

Read about current research projects and funding in the Ocean Dynamics.

Studying

Here you go to the apprenticeship.

RD1

Ocean Circulation and Climate Dynamics

Head of the Research Unit:
Prof. Dr. Arne Biastoch
GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel
Wischhofstr. 1 - 3
24148 Kiel
Germany
Room 3.308 (Building 5, ENB)
Phone: +49 431 600 4000
E-mail: abiastoch(at)geomar.de

Theoretical Oceanography:
Prof. Dr. Stephan Juricke
Room 3.311 (Building 5, ENB)
Phone: +49 431 600 4003
E-mail: sjuricke(at)geomar.de

Team Assistance:
Sabine Niewels
Phone: +49 431 600 4004
E-mail: sekretariat-od(at)geomar.de

Project Assistance:
Ruth Thormann
Phone: +49 431 600 2096
E-mail: rthormann(at)geomar.de

Contact