Dr. Dan Jones - Profile
Contact Dr. Dan Jones
+44 (0)1223 221505
I joined BAS as part of the Exposé project, which aims to locate and understand the dominant export pathways of mode and intermediate waters out of the Southern Ocean and into the interior gyres. We plan on using SOSE data and various modelling/analysis techniques (e.g. adjoint approaches) to map these pathways, investigate the dynamics controlling their strength, and quantify how they may impact on anthropogenic carbon sequestration.
Before joining BAS, I spent some time in the Ocean Biogeochemistry Group at Georgia Tech with Taka Ito, where we explored hypoxia in the Pacific Ocean using a dynamical systems approach. We also used observational and model data to better understand air-sea gas exchange and how such exchange impacts on carbon disequilibria in the interior ocean. Publications are in process from both projects.
My dissertation work focused on Southern Ocean dynamics. Specifically, I used modelling approaches to investigate the decadal-to-centennial timescale response of the Southern Ocean to changes in wind stress. Southern Ocean overturning circulation is an interesting sort of competition between wind-driven dynamics and the nonlinear response of the eddies. It seems that in the 'short' run (i.e. on annual to interannual timescales), the eddies can nearly cancel out changes in direct wind-driven effects, but on longer timescales the two processes don't entirely cancel and the global ocean stratification responds. For more information, see e.g. Jones et al. (2011) in GRL.
I have also taught a number of university courses in a variety of disciplines, including physics, mathematics, and climate. My tendency is to try active learning approaches where students spend a significant fraction of class time actively working on the material through discussions, 'clicker questions', and in-class problems, for example.