Ocean influence on recent climate extremes

About the project

The last decade has seen an increasing number of extreme weather events (e.g. Fischer et al. 2021) which had significant societal impacts. Unprecedented heat waves and drought conditions in some regions have led to heat related deaths, widespread wildfires as well as reductions in agricultural yield while elsewhere floods have caused significant infrastructural damage and in some case loss of life.

It is on land that these events are felt but in some instances they can be accompanied and sometimes preceded by temperature and salinity anomalies in the ocean. Recent examples include an anomalously cold region in the North Atlantic, a warm anomaly in the North Pacific as well as persistent La Niña conditions in the equatorial Pacific. There is increasing evidence that these ocean anomalies feed back onto the atmospheric circulation and contributed to the development of some recent extreme events (e.g. Mecking et al. 2019; Duchez et al. 2016). To what extent these ocean anomalies are the result of changes in the ocean circulation or a response to local atmospheric forcing is far from fully understood. However, this is key to understanding mechanisms of seasonal to interannual predictability in the climate system and to improve preparedness for extreme weather events.

For full project details visit the Inspire project page .

Lead supervisor

• Doctor Joel Hirschi (National Oceanography Centre)

Supervisors

• Doctor Jennifer Mecking (National Oceanography Centre)
• Stephen Kelly (National Oceanography Centre)
• Professor Robert Marsh (University of Southampton)
• Doctor Adam Blaker (National Oceanography Centre)

Potential supervisors

• Potential supervisors: Lead supervisor Professor Robert Marsh Professor of Oceanography & Climate

Lead supervisor

• Lead supervisor: Professor Robert Marsh Professor of Oceanography & Climate

Professor Robert Marsh

• Professor Robert Marsh: Professor of Oceanography & Climate

Entry requirements

A 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent , in one of these subjects:

• any Earth or environmental science discipline
• any numerate discipline
• engineering
• ​mathematics
• oceanography or marine science
• physics

Fees and funding

INSPIRE studentships are funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC, part of UK Research and Innovation, UKRI). The stipend is in line with UKRI standard levels, including the recent cost of living increase.

All studentships are fully funded for 3.5 years.

How to apply

To make an application, visit the how to apply section of the INSPIRE website .

Contact us

For questions about the project, contact Doctor Joel Hirschi:

Email: joel.hirschi@noc.ac.uk

For questions about the application process, contact the graduate school office.

Email: gsnocs@soton.ac.uk

Research areas