Andrey Shcherbina
University of Washington, WA·Earth & Environmental Science
The top layer of the ocean is constantly churned by wind, waves and currents. This turbulent layer, the ocean surface boundary layer (OSBL), controls how heat, gases and momentum move between the air and the deep ocean.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Physics
Engineering
- Topics
ocean turbulence
ocean surface boundary layer
anisotropy
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2027
What they work on
- Measure how anisotropic (direction-dependent) and inhomogeneous ocean surface boundary layer turbulence is, using two drifting Lagrangian floats each carrying customized ADCPs with 10 acoustic beams.
- Estimate how turbulent energy and energy flux are split across scales and directions from multi-directional velocity statistics, in a tidal channel and at Ocean Climate Station P in the North Pacific.
- Determine the extent of the isotropic inertial subrange and whether anisotropy can be predicted and parameterized for use in ocean and climate models.
- Assess how anisotropy biases existing turbulence measurement techniques, and build a dataset for benchmarking simulations and turbulence closures.
More about the research
Climate and ocean models cannot resolve its small eddies, so they rely on simplified rules. These rules usually assume that turbulence looks the same in every direction (isotropy) and in every place (homogeneity). Real ocean turbulence likely departs from this ideal because of shear, density layering and waves. Such departures may explain errors and disagreements among models.
Why it matters
Weather and climate forecasts depend on how well models represent mixing in the upper ocean. By measuring how real turbulence departs from idealized assumptions, this work could improve the rules that models use for ocean mixing. It could also lead to corrections for existing turbulence observations and better measurement practices, helping forecasts from local to global climate scales.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Amrapalli Garanaik
Oregon State University, OR·Earth & Environmental Science
Develop a new second-moment model of the upper ocean boundary layer that represents both local and nonlocal turbulent transport, tuned to observations and Large-Eddy Simulation results.
Brodie Pearson
Oregon State University, OR·Earth & Environmental Science
Develop statistical methods that use the anisotropy of turbulence to distinguish 3-D upper ocean mixing regimes driven by heating or cooling, wind shear and wave-wind interactions.
Tomas Chor
University of Maryland, MD·Earth & Environmental Science
Examine how symmetric instabilities, an overturning motion that grows at ocean fronts, modify the forward cascade of energy toward smaller scales at submesoscale fronts in the presence of mesoscale strain.
The school
University of Washington: 81 labs on PI Pages, $1.7B a year on research, 694 research doctorates a year.
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