Turbulent mixing in the ocean interior is believed to play an important role in shaping ocean circulation and tracer distributions and, in so doing, in influencing global climate. However, the extent of this role, and its dependency on the physics of mixing, remain little explored and poorly quantified. I will review the observational underpinnings of ocean mixing and show that, on annual to millennial time scales, mixing exerts a leading-order control on the rate, structure and internal variability of the ocean’s meridional overturning circulation, and on the oceanic budgets of climatically key tracers such as heat and carbon.  

 Bio: Dr. Ali Mashayek is an assistant professor at Imperial College London lecturing in Environmental Fluid Dynamics, and an affiliate of the Grantham Institute of Climate Change and Environment. He leads the data informed Climatic and Environmental Fluid Dynamics initiative through Imperial-X and is co-founder of the Marine and coastal environments network. Ali received his PhD in Atmospheric and Ocean Physics from the University of Toronto in 2013, and has previously held positions at the University of Oxford, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and MIT.

Contact Neil Jennings if you would like to be sent the calendar invite