Laure Zanna

Last updated
Laure Zanna
Born
Laure E. Zanna
Alma mater Tel Aviv University (BSc)
Weizmann Institute of Science (MSc)
Harvard University (PhD)
Scientific career
Institutions Harvard University
University of Oxford
New York University
Thesis Optimal excitation of Atlantic Ocean variability and implications for predictability  (2009)
Website zanna-researchteam.github.io/author/laure-zanna/

Laure E. Zanna is a Climate Scientist and Professor in Mathematics & Atmosphere/Ocean Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University. She works on topics including climate system dynamics, the influence of the oceans on global scales, data science, and machine learning. [1] In July 2019 she was awarded the Nicholas P. Fofonoff Award for Early Career Research by the American Meteorological Society for "exceptional creativity in the development and application of new concepts in ocean and climate dynamics." [2] She is the lead principal investigator of the NSF-NOAA Climate Process Team on Ocean Transport and Eddy Energy, [3] and she is also the lead investigator of an international effort to improve climate models with scientific machine learning called M2LInES. [4]

Contents

Early life and education

Zanna studied atmospheric physics at Tel Aviv University and graduated in 2001. [5] She earned a Master's degree in environmental sciences in 2003 at the Weizmann Institute of Science and a PhD in Climate Dynamics in 2009 at Harvard University. Her dissertation looked at Atlantic Ocean circulation, and her PhD advisor was Eli Tziperman. [6] As a young researcher she was awarded the European Geosciences Union Outstanding Poster Paper Award for her work on non-normal dynamics of thermohaline circulation. [7] She developed a model that could visualise thermohaline circulation. [8]

Research and career

Zanna was appointed as a Junior Research Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford in 2009. She was appointed to the Oxford Martin School and made an Associate Professor in Physics at the University of Oxford in 2011. She was made a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford in 2011. There she worked on Meridional Overturning Circulation anomalies. [9] She was a lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford from 2014 to 2018, when she was appointed as a David Richards Fellow at Wadham College, Oxford. [10] She moved to become a Professor in Mathematics & Atmosphere/Ocean Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, in 2019.

Her work applies mathematical models to ocean data. [11] By understanding how ocean heat has changed in the past, Zanna's work help make more accurate predictions about climate change. [12] [13] [14]

Zanna's research has included using Green's function methods to relate observations of sea surface temperatures to the temperatures of the deep ocean. [15] By using an ocean transport model, Zanna demonstrated that temperature could be treated as a passive variable that did not impact circulation. [15] She demonstrated that atmospheric heat is mainly stored in the deep sea, with oceans storing up to 93% of the heat of climate change. [15] [16] [17] Specifically, the models developed by Zanna and her group showed that the deep oceans have absorbed 436 zettajoules of energy in the past 150 years. [18] This represents around 1,000 times the worldwide human energy consumption, or 1.5 atomic bombs every second for 150 years. [19] [20] She also found that major ocean currents that transport nutrients and heat are changing. [17]

Her group demonstrated that it is possible to use deep learning and sub-grid parametrisation to analyse ocean data. [21] [22]

In 2022, Zanna was principle lecturer at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Program at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where the topic was "Data-Driven GFD". [23]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Climate model</span> Quantitative methods used to simulate climate

Numerical climate models are mathematical models that can simulate the interactions of important drivers of climate. These drivers are the atmosphere, oceans, land surface and ice. Scientists use climate models to study the dynamics of the climate system and to make projections of future climate and of climate change. Climate models can also be qualitative models and contain narratives, largely descriptive, of possible futures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atmospheric science</span> Study of the atmosphere, its processes, and its interactions with other systems

Atmospheric science is the study of the Earth's atmosphere and its various inner-working physical processes. Meteorology includes atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics with a major focus on weather forecasting. Climatology is the study of atmospheric changes that define average climates and their change over time climate variability. Aeronomy is the study of the upper layers of the atmosphere, where dissociation and ionization are important. Atmospheric science has been extended to the field of planetary science and the study of the atmospheres of the planets and natural satellites of the Solar System.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ocean current</span> Directional mass flow of oceanic water

An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of seawater generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences. Depth contours, shoreline configurations, and interactions with other currents influence a current's direction and strength. Ocean currents move both horizontally, on scales that can span entire oceans, as well as vertically, with vertical currents playing an important role in the movement of nutrients and gases, such as carbon dioxide, between the surface and the deep ocean.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Physical oceanography</span> Study of physical conditions and processes within the ocean

Physical oceanography is the study of physical conditions and physical processes within the ocean, especially the motions and physical properties of ocean waters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thermohaline circulation</span> Part of large-scale ocean circulation

Thermohaline circulation (THC) is a part of the large-scale ocean circulation that is driven by global density gradients created by surface heat and freshwater fluxes. The adjective thermohaline derives from thermo- referring to temperature and -haline referring to salt content, factors which together determine the density of sea water. Wind-driven surface currents travel polewards from the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, cooling en route, and eventually sinking at high latitudes. This dense water then flows into the ocean basins. While the bulk of it upwells in the Southern Ocean, the oldest waters upwell in the North Pacific. Extensive mixing therefore takes place between the ocean basins, reducing differences between them and making the Earth's oceans a global system. The water in these circuits transport both energy and mass around the globe. As such, the state of the circulation has a large impact on the climate of the Earth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sea surface temperature</span> Water temperature close to the oceans surface

Sea surface temperature is the temperature of ocean water close to the surface. The exact meaning of surface varies in the literature and in practice. It is usually between 1 millimetre (0.04 in) and 20 metres (70 ft) below the sea surface. Sea surface temperatures greatly modify air masses in the Earth's atmosphere within a short distance of the shore. The thermohaline circulation has a major impact on average sea surface temperature throughout most of the world's oceans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jule Gregory Charney</span> US meteorologist

Jule Gregory Charney was an American meteorologist who played an important role in developing numerical weather prediction and increasing understanding of the general circulation of the atmosphere by devising a series of increasingly sophisticated mathematical models of the atmosphere. His work was the driving force behind many national and international weather initiatives and programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Numerical weather prediction</span> Weather prediction using mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans

Numerical weather prediction (NWP) uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans to predict the weather based on current weather conditions. Though first attempted in the 1920s, it was not until the advent of computer simulation in the 1950s that numerical weather predictions produced realistic results. A number of global and regional forecast models are run in different countries worldwide, using current weather observations relayed from radiosondes, weather satellites and other observing systems as inputs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atlantic meridional overturning circulation</span> System of surface and deep currents in the Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is the main ocean current system in the Atlantic Ocean. It is a component of Earth's ocean circulation system and plays an important role in the climate system. The AMOC includes Atlantic currents at the surface and at great depths that are driven by changes in weather, temperature and salinity. Those currents comprise half of the global thermohaline circulation that includes the flow of major ocean currents, the other half being the Southern Ocean overturning circulation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Smagorinsky</span> American meteorologist

Joseph Smagorinsky was an American meteorologist and the first director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mars general circulation model</span>

The Mars general circulation model is the result of a research project by NASA to understand the nature of the general circulation of the atmosphere of Mars, how that circulation is driven and how it affects the climate of Mars in the long term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ocean heat content</span> Energy stored by oceans

Ocean heat content (OHC) or ocean heat uptake (OHU) is the energy absorbed and stored by oceans. To calculate the ocean heat content, it is necessary to measure ocean temperature at many different locations and depths. Integrating the areal density of a change in enthalpic energy over an ocean basin or entire ocean gives the total ocean heat uptake. Between 1971 and 2018, the rise in ocean heat content accounted for over 90% of Earth's excess energy from global heating. The main driver of this increase was caused by humans via their rising greenhouse gas emissions. By 2020, about one third of the added energy had propagated to depths below 700 meters.

Adrian Edmund Gill FRS was an Australian meteorologist and oceanographer best known for his textbook Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics. Gill was born in Melbourne, Australia, and worked at Cambridge, serving as Senior Research Fellow from 1963 to 1984. His father was Edmund Gill, geologist, palaeontologist and curator at the National Museum of Victoria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ocean temperature</span> Physical quantity of hot and cold in ocean water

The ocean temperature plays a crucial role in the global climate system, ocean currents and for marine habitats. It varies depending on depth, geographical location and season. Not only the temperature differs in seawater but also the salinity. Warm surface water is generally saltier than the cooler deep or polar waters. In polar regions, the upper layers of ocean water are cold and fresh. Deep ocean water is cold, salty water found deep below the surface of Earth's oceans. This water has a uniform temperature of around 0-3 °C. The ocean temperature also depends on the amount of solar radiation falling on its surface. In the tropics, with the Sun nearly overhead, the temperature of the surface layers can rise to over 30 °C (86 °F). Near the poles the temperature in equilibrium with the sea ice is about −2 °C (28 °F).

John Graham Shepherd CBE FRS is a British Earth system scientist, Emeritus Professor at University of Southampton, and a former director of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. He has worked on a wide range of environment-related topics, including the transport of chemical tracers in the atmospheric boundary layer and in the deep ocean, the management of marine fish stocks, and the dynamics of the Earth system. More recently he led a comprehensive review of geoengineering for the Royal Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Ghil</span>

Michael Ghil is an American and European mathematician and physicist, focusing on the climate sciences and their interdisciplinary aspects. He is a founder of theoretical climate dynamics, as well as of advanced data assimilation methodology. He has systematically applied dynamical systems theory to planetary-scale flows, both atmospheric and oceanic. Ghil has used these methods to proceed from simple flows with high temporal regularity and spatial symmetry to the observed flows, with their complex behavior in space and time. His studies of climate variability on many time scales have used a full hierarchy of models, from the simplest ‘toy’ models all the way to atmospheric, oceanic and coupled general circulation models. Recently, Ghil has also worked on modeling and data analysis in population dynamics, macroeconomics, and the climate–economy–biosphere system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Axel Timmermann</span> German climate physicist and oceanographer

Axel Timmermann is a German climate physicist and oceanographer with an interest in climate dynamics, human migration, dynamical systems' analysis, ice-sheet modeling and sea level. He served a co-author of the IPCC Third Assessment Report and a lead author of IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. His research has been cited over 18,000 times and has an h-index of 70 and i10-index of 161. In 2017, he became a Distinguished Professor at Pusan National University and the founding Director of the Institute for Basic Science Center for Climate Physics. In December 2018, the Center began to utilize a 1.43-petaflop Cray XC50 supercomputer, named Aleph, for climate physics research.

M. Joan Alexander is an atmospheric scientist known for her research on gravity waves and their role in atmospheric circulation.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is a large system of ocean currents, like a conveyor belt. It is driven by differences in temperature and salt content and it is an important component of the climate system. However, the AMOC is not a static feature of global circulation. It is sensitive to changes in temperature, salinity and atmospheric forcings. Climate reconstructions from δ18O proxies from Greenland reveal an abrupt transition in global temperature about every 1470 years. These changes may be due to changes in ocean circulation, which suggests that there are two equilibria possible in the AMOC. Stommel made a two-box model in 1961 which showed two different states of the AMOC are possible on a single hemisphere. Stommel’s result with an ocean box model has initiated studies using three dimensional ocean circulation models, confirming the existence of multiple equilibria in the AMOC.

Bette Otto-Bliesner is an earth scientist known for her modeling of Earth's past climate and its changes over different geological eras.

References

  1. ↑ "Google Scholar page".
  2. ↑ ""2020 Awards and Honors Recipients"" . Retrieved 2024-09-01.
  3. ↑ "CPO on Ocean Transport and Eddy Energy" . Retrieved 2024-09-01.
  4. ↑ "M2LINES" . Retrieved 2024-09-01.
  5. ↑ Zanna, Laure. "Laure Zanna, Oxford". Laure Zanna, Oxford. Retrieved 2019-02-09.
  6. ↑ "Mathematics Genealogy Project" . Retrieved 2024-09-01.
  7. ↑ "Laure Zanna". European Geosciences Union (EGU). Retrieved 2019-02-08.
  8. ↑ "research". www.seas.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2019-02-09.
  9. ↑ Zanna, Laure E. (2009). Optimal excitation of Atlantic Ocean variability and implications for predictability. harvard.edu (PhD thesis). Harvard Univeristy. Bibcode:2009PhDT........32Z. OCLC   477172665.
  10. ↑ "Wadham College Gazette" (PDF). p. 113. Retrieved 2024-09-01.
  11. ↑ David, Tomos W.; Marshall, David P.; Zanna, Laure (2017-05-01). "The statistical nature of turbulent barotropic ocean jets". Ocean Modelling. 113: 34–49. Bibcode:2017OcMod.113...34D. doi:10.1016/j.ocemod.2017.03.008. ISSN   1463-5003.
  12. ↑ "Global warming of oceans equivalent to an atomic bomb per second". edie.net. Retrieved 2019-02-09.
  13. ↑ Fraser, Robert (2018). Interannual North Atlantic Sea surface height dynamics and associated predictability. ora.ox.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.757853.
  14. ↑ Bronselaer, Benjamin (2015). Climate-carbon feedback of the high latitude ocean. ora.ox.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.730512.
  15. 1 2 3 Lopatka, Alex (2019-01-15). "Atmospheric heat gets stored in the deep ocean". Physics Today. 2019 (1): 29295. Bibcode:2019PhT..2019a9295L. doi:10.1063/pt.6.1.20190115a.
  16. ↑ Lopatka, Alex (2019-01-15). "Atmospheric heat gets stored in the deep ocean". Physics Today. 2019 (1): 29295. Bibcode:2019PhT..2019a9295L. doi:10.1063/pt.6.1.20190115a.
  17. 1 2 "2018 was the ocean's hottest year. We'll feel it a long time". 2019-01-16. Retrieved 2019-02-09.
  18. ↑ "Ocean warming speeds vary with depth". Physics World. 2019-01-11. Retrieved 2019-02-09.
  19. ↑ "A century and half of reconstructed ocean warming offers clues for the future". EurekAlert!. Retrieved 2019-02-09.
  20. ↑ "'Scary': Warming of Oceans Is Equivalent to 1.5 Atomic Bombs Every Second Over Past 150 Years". EcoWatch. 2019-01-09. Retrieved 2019-02-09.
  21. ↑ Bolton, Thomas; Zanna, Laure (2019). "Applications of Deep Learning to Ocean Data Inference and Subgrid Parameterization". Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems. 11 (1): 376–399. Bibcode:2019JAMES..11..376B. doi:10.1029/2018MS001472. ISSN   1942-2466.
  22. ↑ Zanna, Laure (2019-01-05). "Applications of Deep Learning to Ocean Data Inference and Sub-Grid Parameterisation". Laure Zanna, Oxford. Retrieved 2019-02-09.
  23. ↑ "WHOI GFD 2022 flyer" (PDF). Retrieved 2024-09-01.
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