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Ocean and Climate Change Institute
Ocean and Climate Change Institute
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Pursuing greater understanding of the ocean’s role in climate change, the Ocean and Climate Change Institute (OCCI) launched support for several new research projects, two OCCI fellows, and a postdoctoral scholar. The Institute also provided continued
support for two fellows, a postdoctoral scholar, and an MIT/WHOI graduate student.
New research projects include the first culture-based calibration of the deep-sea benthic foraminiferal chemistry used to estimate deep-water temperatures; a study focusing
on the influence of ocean surface water temperature on the global air-sea flux of CO2; the application of control theory to understand how the behavior of the atmosphere can be controlled by sea-surface temperatures; an evaluation
of the magnitudes of the buoyancy changes due to changes in heat and freshwater at the surface of the North Atlantic; examination of the sedimentary distribution of protactinium and thorium (uranium radiometric decay products) to measure deep ocean circulation; and the development
of DNA extraction techniques to study the historical
migration of deep-sea corals from the northwest Atlantic.
OCCI also funded several projects
to establish or enhance Atlantic and Arctic Ocean observing systems.
They include measurment of the freshwater flux through Hudson Strait; support of equipment and operations to continue data collection
at the Beaufort Gyre observing system; development of an observing array off southeast Greenland; modification of an autonomous underwater vehicles for navigation beneath Arctic sea ice; and new measurements to reveal the changes of strength and structure
of the Gulf Stream. In addition, OCCI funded the purchase and deployment of a meteorological buoy in the Irminger Sea, and the Institute supported recovery and redeployment of a sediment trap system in the Iceland Sea.
OCCI supported Scott Doney (MCG) in his second year as a fellow and awarded two new fellowships in 2004 to Bernadette Sloyan (PO) and Jeff Donnelly (G&G). Bernadette works to improve our understanding of the Southern Ocean and its effects on the global meridional overturning circulation. Jeff examines natural archives
of Holocene and Pleistocene environmental change using an interdisciplinary
approach, combining the disciplines of sedimentology and stratigraphy, geomorphology, paleoecology, paleoclimatology,
and oceanography. His fellowship is jointly supported with the Coastal Ocean Institute.
A new postdoctoral scholarship was awarded to William Thompson, who studies climate and sea level history.
During his time at WHOI he will use radiometric dating of uplifted coral reefs in Barbados to identify rapid changes in sea level that occurred when glaciers melted.
—William Curry (wcurry@whoi.edu)
Institute Director
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