Connecting Turbulence to Ecology at Multiple Scales

The last 10-15 years of physical oceanographic research makes clear that a particular class of turbulent currents - thin, elongated fronts and filaments or swirling vortices 10 m - 1 km in horizontal scale - can dominate material fluxes on timescales of hours-to-days.  However, the aggregate impacts of these oceanic ‘weather’ patterns on heat fluxes, nutrient availability, and ecosystem functioning remain to be comprehensively quantified and understood, especially on timescales of weeks-to-months.  This knowledge gap precludes the confident prediction of ecosystem response to multiple stressors, particularly in coastal regions where a rich collection of fronts, filaments, and vortices co-exist and interact.  These talks will demonstrate the capacity for a biophysically coupled, regional oceanic modeling system to synthesize conceptions of these turbulent currents and more realistically diagnose their interactions with marine ecosystems, such as kelp forests.  Recent dynamical insights obtained with this modeling system include: (a) discovery of interactions between internal tidal bores and submesoscale fronts and filaments on the Central California shelf and (b) a new understanding of how vertical boundary layer mixing sharpens submesoscale fronts.  Future work aims to deploy the fully coupled modeling system to (California) kelp ecosystems in order to elucidate episodic material fluxes into and out of kelp forests.  This application motivates synergies with measurement campaigns to complement and constrain model predictions, while actualizing a computational framework to enhance ecosystem restoration efforts.

Speaker: Daniel Dauhajre, UC Los Angeles

Room: Hartley Conference Center