Tom Haine

My overall research interest is the fundamental understanding of the physics of the basin-scale ocean and its role in Earth's climate. I am involved in improving estimates of the geophysical state of the ocean circulation through analysis of field data and circulation model results. The subpolar North Atlantic ventilation process (rates, pathways, variability, and mechanisms) interests me in particular. I also investigate key physical processes that maintain the state of the extra-tropical upper ocean focusing on fluid dynamics and thermodynamics and their role in controlling sea surface temperature variability over years to decades.

Knowledge of these processes is vital if we are to describe and understand climatic fluctuations on time-scales of years to decades. At these low frequencies one must accept that the ocean and atmosphere are components of a coupled system. Understanding low frequency natural climate perturbations is clearly a problem of special current relevance. Further, explaining natural climate variability is a pre-requisite of addressing man-kind's effect on global climate.

To identify and understand the tracer-independent transport information contained in ocean tracer data. With collaborators, I have developed some new, powerful theoretical tools and I am applying them to diagnose transport timescales and water-mass composition in the North Atlantic ocean. We are also exploiting the ideas to estimate the oceanic burden of anthropogenic carbon - the new methods have distinct advantages. My long-term aim is to synthesize these ideas about passive tracer transport with potential vorticity theories (that is, dynamically-active tracer theories) of the ocean general circulation.

I work on this topic with Hong Zhang, Erik Kvaleberg, Tim Hall and Darryn Waugh.

To better understand the circulation and dynamics of the Denmark Strait, East Greenland Shelf, and Irminger Sea. Diagnosing and monitoring the flow in this area is critical to estimate the state and variability of the meridional overturning circulation in the North Atlantic ocean. My approach is to use high-resolution numerical models, state-of-the-art data assimilation, and collaborate with observational oceanographers and atmospheric scientists working this area. This project contributes to the international Arctic-Subarctic Ocean Flux (ASOF) study: I am a member of the science steering group for this program and chair of a sub-committee responsible for the subpolar North Atlantic part of ASOF.

Some recent animations of our 2km, 97-level simulation of overflow through Denmark Strait are here (18Mb) and here (18Mb).

I work on this topic with Maelle Nodet, Bob Pickart, researchers at the Oceans & Climate group of GFDL and the Greenland Flow Distortion Experiment. There are post doc positions available in this area now!!!

Understanding the dynamics of rotating stratified fluids in laboratory experiments involving non-linear interactions. Fascinating new measurements by Paul Williams shows that large-scale, low-frequency balanced motions can spontaneously emit short fast waves in a laboratory experiment (see this movie). This presents a challenge to theorists who have quite strong evidence that this should not occur. We are trying to understand what's going on.

I work on this topic with Dawn Ring, Paul Williams, Greg Eyink, and Peter Read.

To identify and understand the dynamic and thermodynamic mechanisms controlling midlatitude interannual SST variability. My focus is on internal ocean processes (advection, mixing, and waves) and their ability to carry signals from remote places in space and time. The ventilation process (see above) has a leading part to play. There are several fundamental issues about how these control mechanisms might operate, or even be described. Interestingly, this issue is closely related to problems in solid state theory and statistical physics. These topics all have roots in the theory of non-equilibrium dynamical systems. This subject is another area of active research for me.

I work on this topic with Bin Zhao and Greg Eyink.

To explore and develop the use of rotating tank experiments in undergraduate teaching of oceanic and atmospheric science. I have intern opportunities for quantitative undergraduatesnow! (email for details).

I work on this topic with the Weather in a Tank team based at MIT.

Much of our research involves comparing numerical circulation models with observations. I have two parallel clusters of linux workstations to perform the demanding calculations. Please contact me for access to our model results.

Our projects are sponsored by the National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Johns Hopkins University, and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Agency. We greatly appreciate their support! We are also active participants in the Center for Environmental & Applied Fluid Mechanics (CEAFM) - a group of Hopkins researchers working on all aspects of fluid mechanics. (Note that any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of these agencies).