The IEEE Oceans 2021 papers submitted by Aaron, Corbin, and Tony have been published, and are available from our website and from https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/. Congratulations to Aaron, Corbin, Tony, and Jacob!

Abhinav’s machine learning research on neural closure models has been featured in the January 21, 2022 entry of MIT News [Archived PDF here]. Congratulations Abhinav for all your contributions!

Prof. Pierre Lermusiaux has been invited to give a webinar on 19 January 2022, 7:30am EST about “Bayesian Learning of High-Dimensional Dynamical Models” for the AI Chair OceaniX webinar series.

Anya Zhang, a high school senior who joined MSEAS during summer 2021 as an RSI scholar, recently entered the Regeneron Science Talent Search (STS) and was named as one of the top 300 scholars out of 1,805 students in the 2022 competition. Her research with MSEAS reported on “Interactive Ocean Visualization Using VAPOR” and was included in the Regenron STS. Congrats Anya!

Significant lateral density gradients occur throughout the year in the Alboran Sea, giving rise to two main fronts: the Western Alboran Gyre Front (WAGF) and Eastern Alboran Gyre Front (EAGF), where large vertical velocities often develop. To improve the understanding of the processes that underlie the development of the vertical velocities in the fronts, the periods of development were analyzed in the perspective of the frontogenesis, instabilities, non-linear Ekman, and filamentogenesis mechanisms, using multi-platform in-situ observations and a high-resolution realistic simulation in spring 2018. The spatio-temporal characteristics of the WAGF indicate a wider, deeper, and longer-lasting front than the EAGF. Additionally, the WAGF shows stronger and deeper upwelling and downwelling regions. The WAGF vertical velocities (up to |55| m/day) are amplified by an across-front ageostrophic secondary circulation generated by: (a) frontal intensification explained by frontogenesis, which shows a sharpening of buoyancy gradients associated with the Atlantic Jet, (b) nonlinear Ekman effects, that are enhanced by the persistent western wind blowing along the frontal direction, and (c) submesoscale instabilities (symmetric and ageostrophic baroclinic instabilities). The EAGF vertical velocities (up to |38| m/day) are amplified by two asymmetrical ageostrophic cells developed across the front with a narrow upwelling region in the middle. The cell’s circulation is explained by frontal intensification produced by filamentogenesis through a cold filament advection to the Mediterranean Sea interior, that is characterized by pointy isopycnals at the center of the filament. This mechanism is observed in both the model and glider observations.