A new coastal current: the Southwest MAdagascar Coastal Current (SMACC) has been uncovered by researchers at the University of the Cape Town, South Africa.The lead author of the paper (in the Geophysical Research Letters) announcing the discovery is Mr.Heriniaina Juliano Dani Ramanantsoa, who coincidentally hails from Madagascar and is a PhD student at the Department of Oceanography, University of the Cape Town.

SMACC flows along the southwestern coast of Madagascar toward the south. The SMACC is a relatively shallow (<300 m) and narrow (<100 km wide) warm and salty surface current, which is more intense in summer and reduced in winter. The Southwest MAdagascar Coastal Current has a downstream impact on the upwelling system at the south of Madagascar which is a... [Read More]

A recent study (Science Advances 14 Mar 2018:Vol. 4, no. 3, eaaq0030: DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaq0030) in Science Advances shows the importance of citizen science.

A glowing ribbon of purple light running east-west in the night sky has recently been observed by citizen scientists. This narrow, subauroral, visible structure, distinct from the traditional auroral oval, was largely undocumented in the scientific literature and little was known about its formation. Amateur photo sequences showed colors distinctly different from common types of aurora and occasionally indicated magnetic field–aligned substructures. Observations from the Swarm satellite as it crossed the arc have revealed an unusual level of electron temperature enhancement and density depletion, along with a... [Read More]

A new study regarding Submesoscale Rossby waves on the Antarctic circumpolar current published in Science advances.

Abstract

The eastward-flowing Antarctic circumpolar current (ACC) plays a central role in the global ocean overturning circulation and facilitates the exchange of water between the ocean surface and interior. Submesoscale eddies and fronts with scales between 1 and 10 km are regularly observed in the upper ocean and are associated with strong vertical circulations and enhanced stratification. Despite their importance in other locations, comparatively little is known about submesoscales in the Southern Ocean. We present results from new observations, models, and theories showing that submesoscales are qualitatively changed by the strong jet... [Read More]

3 PhD positions in ocean biogeochemical modeling and data analyses


The Environmental Physics Group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) is a vibrant interdisciplinary team of researchers studying the interaction of biogeochemical cycles and climate from regional to global scales. A new focus of the group is the investigation of extreme events, i.e., conditions in either physical or biogeochemical state that are way outside the norm. We are particularly interested in Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems, such as the California and Humboldt Current Systems, as we suspect them to be particularly susceptible to such events. In this context, we are searching for
3 PhD positions in ocean biogeochemical modeling and data analyses in... [Read More]