Please mark your calendars for the next Physics colloquium, given by Dr. Jennifer Mackinnon, of theOcean Dynamics group at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and UC San Diego. Her talk on “Physics in action to understand our changing ocean” will take place on Wednesday, April 19, at 3:00 pm in RNS 210 (St. Olaf). Please see below for the abstract of her talk, more information about Dr. Mackinnon and the Zoom link, if you can’t join us in RNS 210.
Join Zoom Meeting
Title and Abstract:Physics in action to understand our changing ocean
The field of physical oceanography simplistically involves applying F=ma to the ocean. The details however get messy and murky and marvelously complex. My work involves detangling physical processes that control everything from the melting of Arctic sea ice to monsoon forecasting near India to understanding anoxic zones in the Gulf of Mexico. In this talk I’ll show how physics and math expertise can unlock a world of interesting research possibilities, give a bit of a feel for what the life of an oceanographer is like, and showcase a few recent results.
Bio:
Dr. MacKinnon is a seagoing physical oceanographer and part of the Multiscale Ocean Dynamics group at SIO/UCSD. She studies small-scale dynamical processes in the ocean, primarily internal waves, turbulence, sub-mesoscale instabilities, and their often complex interplay. Part of her work involves going to sea to observe these processes, using the ocean as a natural laboratory. Simultaneously, she working with collaborators to turn this dynamical understanding into better parameterizations of small-scale processes to improve global climate models.