Featured Publications

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Manfredi Manizza
Manfredi Manizza
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Isabela Le Bras
Isabela Le Bras
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Shanice Bailey
Shanice Bailey
Columbia University
Clément Bertin
Clément Bertin
Littoral Environnement et Sociétés (LIENSs)
Emily Zakem
Emily Zakem
Carnegie Science
Ou Wang
Ou Wang
NASA JPL
Qihua Peng
Qihua Peng
UCSD / Scripps
David Trossman
David Trossman
Louisiana State University
Louise Rousselet
Louise Rousselet
UCSD / Scripps
Paola Cessi
Paola Cessi
Jorge Vazquez
Jorge Vazquez
Nora Loose
Nora Loose
Univ. Texas Austin

A Tale of Two Coastlines

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Wang, O., Lee, T., Frederikse, T., Ponte, R., Fenty, I., Fukumori, I., and Hamlington, B. (2024) What Forcing Mechanisms Affect the Interannual Sea Level Co-Variability Between the Northeast and Southeast Coasts of the United States?, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 129, e2023JC019873, doi: 10.1029/2023JC019873

Research Roundup 2023

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What's Baking the Bering Sea?

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Hayden, E., and O'Neill, L. (2024) Processes Contributing to Bering Sea Temperature Variability in the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Century, J. Clim., 37(1), doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-23-0331.1

Small Scales, Big Impacts

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Xiao, Q., Balwada, D., Jones, C.S. et al. (2023) Reconstruction of Surface Kinematics From Sea Surface Height Using Neural Networks, J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst., 15, e2023MS003709, doi: 10.1029/2023MS003709

Our Ocean Pushes Back

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Bai, Y., Thompson, A., Villas Bôas, A. et al. (2023) Sub-Mesoscale Wind-Front Interactions: The Combined Impact of Thermal and Current Feedback, Geophys. Res. Lett., 50, e2023GL104807, doi: 10.1029/2023GL104807

What Drives 'Nose Dives' in Gray Whale Populations?

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Stewart, J., Joyce, T., Durban, J. et al. (2023) Boom-bust cycles in gray whales associated with dynamic and changing Arctic conditions, Science, 382(6667), doi: 10.1126/science.adi1847

Wind at Work

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Torres, H., Wineteer, A., Klein, P., et al. (2023) Anticipated Capabilities of the ODYSEA Wind and Current Mission Concept to Estimate Wind Work at the Air-Sea Interface, Remote Sens., 15, 3337, doi: 10.3390/rs15133337

Less Ice, More Blooms?

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Manizza, M., Carroll, D., Menemenlis, D. et al. (2023) Modeling the Recent Changes of Phytoplankton Blooms Dynamics in the Arctic Ocean, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 127, e2022JC019152, doi: 10.1029/2022JC019152

Deep Ocean Slowdown?

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Le Bras, I., Willis, J., and Fenty, I. (2023) The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation at 35°N From Deep Moorings, Floats, and Satellite Altimeter. Geophys. Res. Lett. 50, e2022GL101931, doi: 10.1029/2022GL101931

Deep Water Action in the Weddell Sea

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Bailey, S., Jones, C., Abernathey, R. et al. (2023) Water mass transformation variability in the Weddell Sea in ocean reanalyses. Ocean Sci. 19, doi: 10.5194/os-19-381-2023

River Triggers Intense Coastal Outgassing

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Bertin, C., Carroll, D., Menemenlis, D. et al. (2023) Biogeochemical River Runoff Drives Intense Coastal Arctic Ocean CO2 Outgassing, Geophys. Res. Lett. 50, e2022GL102377, doi: 10.1029/2022GL102377

How Does the Ocean Affect Earth's Wobble?

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Börger, L., et al. (2023) Are Ocean Reanalyses Useful for Earth Rotation Research? Earth and Space Science, 10, e2022EA002700., doi: 10.1029/2022EA002700

From Micro to Global

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Zakem, E. et al. (2022) Controls on the relative abundances and rates of nitrifying microorganisms in the ocean, Biogeosciences, 19, doi: 10.5194/bg-19-5401-2022

Research Roundup 2022

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Our Ocean’s Heat Hideaways

Bachman, S. et al. (2022) A global atlas of potential thermal refugia for coral reefs generated by internal gravity waves, Front. Mar. Sci. 9, 921879, doi: 10.3389/fmars.2022.921879

There’s Sea Level Rise in Nantucket ...

Wang, O., et al. (2022) Local and remote forcing of interannual sea-level variability at Nantucket Island, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, doi: 10.1029/2021JC018275

Warmer waters, Faster flow

Peng, Q., et al. (2022) Surface warming-induced global acceleration of upper ocean currents, Science Advances, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abj8394

Tightening Up the Ocean Carbon Budget

Carroll, D. et al. (2022) Attribution of space-time variability in global-ocean dissolved inorganic carbon, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 36(3), doi: 10.1029/2021GB007162

Hidden Upwelling Systems Revealed

Liao, F., Liang, X., Li, Y., and Spall, M. (2022). Hidden Upwelling Systems Associated With Major Western Boundary Currents. J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 173(3), doi: 10.1029/2021JC017649

Monitoring Ocean Heat Below... from Above

Trossman, D. and Tyler, R. (2022). A Prototype for Remote Monitoring of Ocean Heat Content Anomalies. J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol., doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-21-0037.1

Research Roundup 2021

Teasing Apart Arctic Sea Level Change

Fukumori, I., Wang, O., and Fenty, I. (2021). Causal Mechanisms of Sea Level and Freshwater Content Change in the Beaufort Sea. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 51(10), 3217-3234, doi: 10.1175/JPO-D-21-0069.1

Turning Over a New Climate

Kostov, Y., Johnson, H.L., Marshall, D.P. et al. (2021). Distinct sources of interannual subtropical and subpolar Atlantic overturning variability. Nat. Geosci. 14, 491-495, doi: 10.1038/s41561-021-00759-4

How Low — and Slow — Can Water Go?

Rousselet, L., Cessi, P., and Forget, G. (2021). Coupling of the mid-depth and abyssal components of the global overturning circulation according to a state estimate. Sci. Adv. 7, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abf5478

Southern Ocean Influencers... both Near and Far

Boland, E.J.D., Jones, D.C., Meijers, A.J.S., Forget, G., and Josey, S.A. (2021). Local and remote influences on the heat content of Southern Ocean mode water formation regions, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 126, e2020JC016585, doi: 10.1029/2020JC016585

Salt, Saildrones, SMAP & ECCO

Vazquez-Cuervo, J., Gentemann, C., Tang,W., Carroll, D., Zhang, H., Menemenlis, D., Gomez-Valdes, J., Bouali, M., and Steele, M. (2021). Using Saildrones to Validate Arctic Sea-Surface Salinity from the SMAP Satellite and from Ocean Models, Remote Sens., 13, 831, doi: 10.3390/rs13050831

Research Roundup 2020

How do you Build the World’s Best Ocean Carbon Model?

Carroll et al. (2020). The ECCO-Darwin Data-Assimilative Global Ocean Biogeochemistry Model: Estimates of Seasonal to Multidecadal Surface Ocean pCO2 and Air-Sea CO2 Flux, J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 12(10), e2019MS001888, doi: 10.1029/2019MS001888

What Earthquakes Can Tell Us About Ocean Warming

Wu, W., Zhan, Z., Peng, S., Ni, S., and Callies, J. (2020). Ocean seismic thermometry, Science, 369(6510), 1510-1515, doi:10.1126/science.abb9519

Sensitive Spots...and How to Find Them

Loose, N., Heimbach, P., Pillar, H., and Nisanciouglu, K. (2020). Quantifying Dynamical Proxy Potential through Shared Adjustment Physics in the North Atlantic, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, e2020JC016112, doi: 10.1029/2020JC016112

Defining the Fluid Nature of Ocean Ecosystems

Sonnewald, M., Dutkiewicz, S., Hill, C., Forget, G. (2020). Elucidating Ecological Complexity: Unsupervised Learning Determines Global Marine Eco-provinces, Science Advances, 6(22), doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aay4740.

How Does Our Ocean "Pass the Salt"? Ask ECCO

Liu, C., Liang, X., Ponte, R., Vinogradova, N., and Wang, O. (2019). Vertical Redistribution of Salt and Layered Changes in Global Ocean Salinity, Nat. Commun., 10, 3445, doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-11436-x.
When compared to the variable flux of freshwater at the ocean's surface, the amount of dissolved salt in our ocean basins is relatively stable. Thus, understanding changes in salinity is key to estimating the global net freshwater input into our ocean. MORE »

ECCO Helps Debunk the "Ocean Conveyor Belt"

Forget, G. and Ferreira, D. (2019). Global Ocean Heat Transport Dominated by Heat Export from the Tropical Pacific, Nat, Geosci., 12, 351-354, doi: 10.1038/s41561-019-0333-7.
Earth's climate is regulated by the exchange and storage of heat between the ocean and the atmosphere. Thus, it is important to understand the pathways of ocean heat. This includes distinguishing between heat that is exchanged with our atmosphere - potentially warming our climate - and heat that merely circulates within our ocean. Investigators have used ECCO's state-of-the-art, global gridded data product to provide a new perspective on ocean heat transport. MORE »

Cold Water Currently Slowing Fastest Greenland Glacier

Khazendar, A., Fenty, I., Carroll, D., Gardner, A., Lee, C., Fukumori, I., Wang, O., Zhang, H., Seroussi, H., Moller, D., Noël, B., van den Broecke, M., Dinardo, S., and Willis, J., 2019, Interruption of two decades of Jakobshavn Isbrae acceleration and thinning as regional ocean cools, Nat. Geosci. 12, 277-283, doi: 10.1038/s41561-019-0329-3.
The Jakobshavn Glacier, which has been Greenland's fastest-flowing and fastest-thinning glacier for the last 20 years, is now flowing more slowly, thickening, and advancing toward the ocean instead of retreating farther inland. ECCO was used to help trace this slowdown to a current that carries cold water around the southern tip of Greenland and northward along its west coast. MORE »

Turns Out the "Seven Seas" are Five Ocean Clusters

Sonnewald, M., Wunsch, C., and Heimbach, P., 2019, Unsupervised Learning Reveals Geography of Global Ocean Dynamical Regions, Earth and Space Science, 6(5), 784-794, doi: 10.1029/2018EA000519.
Unraveling the complexity of our ocean is a daunting task but can be made easier with machine learning techniques that reveal connections in data. Using "K-means clustering" algorithm to identify robust patterns in data, researchers have determined that the dominant physics of the vertically integrated (i.e., top-to-bottom or "barotropic") circulation for about 93% of the global ocean can be categorized into five clusters. MORE »

Using ECCO Estimates for Studies in Geodesy

Quinn, K.J., Ponte, R.M, Heimbach, P., Fukumori, I., and Campin, J.-M., (2018). Ocean Angular Momentum from a Recent Global State Estimate, with Assessment of Uncertainties, Geophys. J. Int., 216(1), 584-597, doi: 10.1093/gji/ggy452.
The ocean is a key factor in determining and understanding the geodetic properties of the Earth. For example, changes in the oceanic mass field can have important effects on crustal loading. Knowledge of the mean ocean surface circulation and dynamic topography can help determine the marine geoid and the gravity field. And variability in both ocean currents and bottom pressure can affect the Earth's orientation in space. MORE »

A New 20-year Ocean Climatology

Fukumori, I., Heimbach, P., Ponte, R.M., and Wunsch, C. (2018). A Dynamically Consistent, Multivariable Ocean Climatology, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 99, 2107-2128, doi: 10.1175/BAMS-D-17-0213.1.
A new 20-year ocean climatology has been created for ocean circulation and climate studies based on the recent ECCO Version 4 release 3 ocean state estimate. In comparison to conventional climatologies based on observations alone, the new ECCO climatology accounts for the very great inhomogeneity with which the ocean has been observed. MORE »

Ocean-induced Melt Triggers Glacier Retreat in Northwest Greenland

Wood, M., Rignot, E., Fenty, I., Menemenlis, D., Millan, R., Morlighem, M., Mouginot, J. & Seroussi, H. (2018). Ocean-induced Melt Triggers Glacier Retreat in Northwest Greenland, Geophys. Res. Lett., 45(16), 8334-8342. doi: 10.1029/2018GL078024.
In recent decades, tidewater glaciers in Northwest Greenland have contributed significantly to sea level rise but have also exhibited a complex spatial pattern of retreat that remained unexplained. In this new study, NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) data are used in combination with ECCO model outputs to assess the role of the ocean in triggering the retreat of these glaciers. MORE »

Mechanisms of the Recent Decadal Trend of the North Atlantic Ocean Heat Content

Piecuch, C.G., Ponte, R.M., Little, C.M., Buckley, M.W., and Fukumori, I. (2017). Mechanisms Underlying Recent Decadal Changes in Subpolar North Atlantic Ocean Heat Content, Geophys. Res. Oceans, 122(9), 7181-7197, doi: 10.1002/2017JC012845.
The subpolar North Atlantic (SPNA) reversed trends in ocean heat content from warming during 1994-2004 to cooling over 2005-2015. ECCO V4r3 reveals that this reversal is the result of anomalous horizontal midlatitude gyre circulation acting on the mean temperature gradient, rather than changes in overturning circulation. Results have implications for decadal predictability. MORE »

Coherent Arctic Ocean Bottom Pressure Variations

Fukumori, I., Wang, O., Llovel, W., Fenty, I., and Forget, G. (2015). A Near-uniform Fluctuation of Ocean Bottom Pressure and Sea Level Across the Deep Ocean Basins of the Arctic Ocean and the Nordic Seas, Prog. Oceanogr., 134, 152-172, doi: 10.1016/j.pocean.2015.01.013.
Across the Arctic Ocean and the Nordic Seas, GRACE and in-situ observations identified a basin-wide mode of ocean bottom pressure and sea-level fluctuation with spatially near-uniform amplitude and phase. This basin-wide fluctuation is barotropic and dominates the region's large-scale variability from sub-monthly to interannual timescales. MORE »