We are delighted to welcome the following to the MIO Thursday 21 December 2023 à 15h00 in the Salle Egée: Isabelle Dadou (Professor), Micael Aguedjou (postdoc) and Camille Cardot (doctoral student) from LEGOS. Micael Aguedjou will present his work on mesoscale eddies in the tropical Atlantic Ocean.
Come one, come all!
Meeting ID: 957 6804 0694
Passcode: L10nJY
Abstract
Mesoscale eddies play a major role in ocean dynamics, mainly in the transport of energy, heat, salt and other tracers (nutrients), in particular the redistribution of water masses trapped in these vortices. In the tropical Atlantic Ocean, unlike in other oceanic regions, very little is known about the properties of mesoscale eddies, their formation mechanism and their potential impact on the basin scale. During my thesis work, we looked at these mesoscale dynamics in the Tropical Atlantic Ocean (TAO), and the physical processes that characterise them using in situ and satellite data. During the seminar, I will present i) a summary of eddy properties in the TAO and seasonality (Aguedjou et al., 2019), ii) a qualitative analysis of the mechanisms underlying the formation of mesoscale eddies in the TAO, and the influence of eddies on heat fluxes (latent and sensible) and freshwater at the ocean-atmosphere interface. We will first discuss the isopycnal temperature/salinity anomalies of eddies and, by qualitative deduction using the conservation equation for potential vorticity, the mechanisms at the source of their formation (Aguedjou et al., 2021). Secondly, we will discuss the influence of eddies on turbulent flows and precipitation in the TAO (Aguedjou et al., 2023).