Tom Haine

Tracers & Transport Diagnostics

We aim 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 Tim Hall and Darryn Waugh.

Check out my April 2010 lecture "Transit-time distributions: A tool to diagnose rates and pathways of tracer transport in advective/diffusive flow" at the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications Workshop on "Transport and Mixing in Complex and Turbulent Flows." You can also watch my tutorial lecture on "Introduction to dynamics and tracer dispersion in geophysical fluids"

In summer 2011 I co-organized the International Workshop / School on Tracer and Timescale Methods for Understanding Complex Geophysical and Environmental Processes, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. We're now hoping to write a book on tracer timescale methods.

Subpolar Atlantic Circulation & Dynamics

The goal is 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 chair of the International Scientific Steering Group for this program.

Some recent animations of our 2km, 97-level simulation of overflow through Denmark Strait are here (from High-frequency fluctuations in Denmark Strait transport) and here (from On the nature and variability of the East Greenland Spill Jet: A case study in summer 2003).

We're particularly interested in the role of sub-mesoscale atmospheric motions on subpolar ocean circulation, and collaborate with atmospheric scientists on this topic. See this clip for an impression of the Irminger Sea atmospheric boundary layer from the FAAM research aircraft at 100feet!

I'm also interested in the environmental knowledge of Norse colonists to Iceland, Greenland and North America in the middle ages (e.g. this recent essay).

I work on this topic with Santha Akella, Marcello Magaldi, Inga Koszalka, 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!!!

Geophysical Fluid Dynamics

We want to understand the dynamics of rotating stratified fluids in laboratory experiments involving non-linear interactions. Fascinating 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.

I'm also a member of the American Meteorological Society Atmospheric & Oceanic Fluid Dynamics Committee, and involved in organizing the bi-annual AOFD meetings.

Fundamental Ideas in Climate Sensitivity

Aim: 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 Greg Eyink and Stephen Jeffress. See, for example, Eyink et al. 2004.

Teaching Rotating Stratified Fluid Dynamics

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

The most recent work on this topic points out the analogies between rotating fluids and gyroscopes. See the article!

I work on this topic with the Deepak Cherian, who was an undergraduate intern in my group in 2009, Robbie Nedbor-Gross and the Weather in a Tank team based at MIT.

Biophysical Controls on CDOM

We aim to diagnose and understand the physical and biogeochemical processes affecting colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), especially in the high latitude oceans.

I work on this topic with the Suneet Dwivedi and Carlos Del Castillo at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. We are involved with the Southern Ocean GasEx project.

The SOGasEx project recently won a NASA Group Achievement Award!

Much of our research involves comparing numerical circulation models with observations. I have two clusters of linux workstations to perform the demanding calculations, we also use other clusters and national supercomputer centers for our work. Please contact me for access to our model results.

We are active participants in the Center for Environmental & Applied Fluid Mechanics (CEAFM; I'm the Deputy Director) - a group of Hopkins researchers working on all aspects of fluid mechanics. I'm also a PI on the JHU IGERT program in Modelling Complex Systems, which is an exciting initiative to train a new generation of researchers in science-based coupling of models and parameterizations. My students can participate in this program too.

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! (Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of these agencies).

	Thomas W. N. Haine Professor of Physical Oceanography
	office 329 Olin Hall telephone (410) 516-7048 fax (410) 516-7933 e-mail Thomas.Haine at jhu.edu address Earth & Planetary Sciences, 329 Olin Hall 34th and North Charles St. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 USA