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Dr Ian M. Brooks - Lecturer in Atmospheric
Science |
My research interests lie mostly within the area of boundary-layer meteorology and turbulent exchange processes - air-sea interaction, entrainment, and polar boundary layers - straying occasionally into aerosol and cloud microphysical processes. While primarily an experimental/observational scientist, I have become increasingly involved with modelling studies, using large eddy simulation to study boundary-layer processes directly, and confronting large-scale models with measurements to try and figure out why they don't work as well as we'd like them to.
NEWS : Deployment of instrumented buoys for the Pacific Typhoon study has just been completed - we got a news feature in Science, see the ASIST page and cruise diary for more information.
Publications | Conference papers
CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
WAGES : Waves Aerosol and Gas Exchange
Study
A joint project with members of the Surface
Processes group at the National Oceanography
Centre, Southampton, WAGES will make continuous measurements of air sea
fluxes of CO2 and sea-spray aerosol as well as momentum, heat and moisture,
coupled with measurements of forcing processes: mean wind, wurface wave spectrum,
whitecap fraction, etc. Autonomous measurements will be ongoing over a period
of more than 2 years, supplemented with manned campaigns where additional measurements
will be made, primarily in-situ wave measurements from a spar buoy. The project
aims to develop improved air-sea flux parameterizations that include the effects
of wave state and bubble-mediated exchanges.
[NERC grant: NE/G00353X/1][WAGES pages]
ASIST : Air-Sea Interaction &
Sea-spray in Typhoons
The evaporation of water from sea-spray is thought to modify the exchange of
heat and moisture between the ocean and atmosphere. At low wind speeds the effect
is negligible, but at high wind speeds (>15 m/s), significant volumes of
spray are generated, and the impact on heat and moisture fluxes is believed
to be significant. Most of the work on this effect has relied upon theoretical
arguments or modelling studies, and evidence from discrepancies between existing
bulk flux algorithms and observations under high winds. This study is a collaboration
with collagues at the Rosenstiel School
of Marine & Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami, and part
of a much larger programme aimed at improving the forecasting of Pacific Typhoons:
ITOP (Impact of Typhoons on the Ocean in the Pacific). We will
make direct measurements of air-sea fluxes, and the sea-spray aerosol spectra
within Typhoons in the East/South China Seas, in order to make direct estimates
of the impact of spray production on the air-sea fluxes.
[NERC grant: NE/H004238/1][ASIST pages]
ASCOS : Arctic Summer Cloud-Ocean
Study
An
international project, coordinated by Stockholm University, to investigate the
interactions between the Arctic icecap, the overlying boundary layer, and the
ubiquitous low-level stratiform cloud. A 6-week field campaign was conducted
from the Swedish Icebreaker Oden during the summer of 2008. The Leeds
group ran the surface & boundary layer micrometeorology measurement campaign
in collaboration with a group from University of Stockholm, making extensive
measurements of turbulent exchange and boundary layer structure over sea ice
from 15-m and 30-m masts erected on the ice, along with a turbulence-sonde carried
by a tethered balloon. We also ran a SODAR to make wind profile & BL structure
measurements up to about 500m.
[NERC grant: NE/E010008/1 - field campaign][ASCOS
pages]
[NERC grant: NE/H02168X/1 - analysis]
Details of some recently completed research projects can be found here.
Research Group
Dr. Sarah Norris - PDRA - working on aerosol fluxes as part of the SEASAW, SO-SAFE, and WAGES projects.
Dr David Sproson - PDRA - working on the ITOP/ASIST project, investigating the impact of sea spray on the air-sea exchange of heat and moisture within typhoons.
Tom Pleavin - PhD student - Funded via a NERC Open CASE award with the MetOffice, Tom is studying the dynamics of arctic stratus clouds, utilizing the MetOffice Large Eddy Model and observations from the ASCOS campaign.
David Tupman - PhD Student - working on the WAGES project, David is studying the impact of wave state on air-sea fluxes, in particular those of CO2 and sea-spray aerosols.
Dominic Salisbury - PhD student - working satelite retrievals of air-sea fluxes.
Former Group Members
Cathryn Birch - Cathryn completed a PhD on Arctic meteorology funded by NERC and a CASE award from the MetOffice. She worked on turbulent exchange processes over the Arctic icecap as part of the ASCOS programme, and investigating the representation of these processes and boundary layer structure within the Met Office Unified Model. She has now moved on to warmer topics, working on land-atmosphere interactions over West Africa.
Masters project students
Ruth Loughrey - MRes (2009/10) - turbulent coupling of cloud and sea-ice in the Arctic Ocean.
Andrew Fish - MRes (2008/9) - a study of the vertical structure of the arctic boundary layer using ASCOS data, particularly the SODAR and tethersonde measurements.
Anthony Bloom - MRes (2006/7) - worked on CO2 flux data from the SEASAW project.
Alison Fowler - MRes (2005/6) Alison used the MetOffice Large Eddy Model to study entrainment processes in convective boundary layers.
MRes Projects
MRes projects are available in a range of topics related to boundary-layer processes:
air-sea gas exchange, and entrainment processes. Please enquire for further
details.
PhD Projects
PhD projects are available in the areas of Large Eddy Simulation and lidar studies
of entrainment processes, and in the measurement and parameterization of air-sea
fluxes, especially sea-spray aerosol fluxes. See the ICAS
PhD pages for application information.
Teaching
SOEE3410 - Atmosphere and Ocean Climate Change [internal module pages]
SOEE3610 - Oceanography in the Earth System
Introduction to MATLAB - short course for research students.