ESPCI web site
Bringing fluid dynamics to life in the ocean
No flow, no life. Without movement in the fluid, there would barely be any life in the ocean. Fluid movements allow the continuous supply of nutrients essential to photosynthesis in the sunlit layer of the ocean. This sustains microscopic phytoplankton, an immense biodiversity, and the entire marine food web. In this talk, I will draw attention to a specific class of movements associated with sharp, surface intensified density fronts. I will show that they are disproportionally important to marine life and yet not well accounted for in current anthropogenic climate change projections based on Earth System Models.