The Ocean Front Modeling Challenge

In an article published today in Science, Raf Ferrari explains why getting ocean fronts right might just help climate models become more accurate. 

Likening the function of the myriad fronts separating different water masses in the ocean with that of the alveoli in a lung, Ferrari explains "Just as [alveoli] facilitate the rapid exchange of gases when breathing, fronts are the ducts through which heat, carbon, oxygen, and other climatically important gases enter into the deep ocean". Read Ferrari's short "perspectives" article "A Frontal Challenge for Climate Models", to find out what unusually detailed recent observations are teaching us about mixing at ocean fronts and how this improved understanding should lead to more accurate climate prediction.

Raffaele Ferrari is MIT's Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Oceanography. He is particularly interested in the dynamics of the ocean and climate with active research efforts in the areas of atmospheric and oceanic turbulence, air-sea interactions, the energetics of the ocean circulation, the impact of ocean physics on biology, and questions of paleoclimate. In his research he uses a combination of theoretical fluid dynamics, numerical modeling, and analysis of observations.