Atmosphere Ocean Science Colloquium

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Ice ages and the latent dynamics of the Indian Ocean

Speaker: Jessica E. Tierney, University of Arizona

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1302

Date: Wednesday, March 28, 2018, 3:30 p.m.

Synopsis:

Of the tropical oceans, the Indian ocean basin exhibits the weakest gradients in winds and SST and lowest amount of interannual variability. But was the Indian Ocean always such a “quiescent” place? In this talk, I’ll discuss how paleoclimate data from the Last Glacial Maximum — the last Ice Age — suggest a notably altered climatology and the emergence of strong coupled ocean-atmosphere dynamics in the Indian Ocean. Our findings also raise the specter that such “latent dynamics” could emerge in the near future, in response to increased greenhouse gases.