Tom Rippeth
Having graduated from Reading University (BSc Physics and Meteorology) Tom moved to Bangor in 1987 to undertake an MSc followed by a PhD in Physical Oceanography. Tom was awarded his PhD on "Controls on stratification in a fjordic system" in 1994. Following a spell at the Institute of Ocean Sciences, Vancouver Island Tom returned to Bangor and was awarded two prestigious fellowships by the UK Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC). In 2007 Tom was appointed a Senior Lecturer at the School of Ocean Sciences, becoming a Reader in 2010. Within the School of Ocean Sciences Tom is a member of the turbulence and mixing research group, whose members include Professors John H Simpson and Steve Thorpe FRS.
Abstract
Although continental shelf seas make up a small fraction of the world's ocean surface (~ 7%), they are areas of intense physical and biological activity and consequently play a major role in linking the terrestrial, atmospheric and oceanic carbon pools. The focus of group research is the identification, quantification and parameterisation of the key physical processes which drive fluxes across the critical interfaces within the continental shelf sea system. The correct representation of these processes is essential in climate models as it is the control on exchange at these critical interfaces which will determine the interactions and feedbacks between the terrestrial, oceanic and atmospheric components of the Earth System.
The work of the turbulence and mixing group is strongly underpinned by technical developments in our ability to measure turbulence in the ocean. The Bangor group is widely recognized as the European leaders in the development and implementation of novel techniques for the measurement of turbulent fluxes within the marine environment.
Tom will present some recent work looking at the dissipation, and consequent mixing driven by, wind driven near-inertial oscillations in the North West European Continental Shelf Seas. He will then extent this work to look at vertical mixing in the much more quiescent environment of the Arctic Ocean.
References:
Burchard, H and Rippeth, TP (2008).Generation of bulk shear spikes in shallow stratified tidal seas.Journal of Physical Oceanography39, 969-985
Yueng-Djern Lenn, Tom P. Rippeth, Chris P. Old, Sheldon Bacon, Igor Polyakov, Vladimir Ivanov, Jens Hölemann (2011). Intermittent Intense Turbulent Mixing under Ice in the Laptev Sea Continental Shelf.Journal of Physical Oceanography,41(3), 531-547
Yueng-Djern Lenn, Wiles, P. J., Torres-Valdes, S., Abrahamsen, E. P., Rippeth, T. P., Simpson, J. H., Bacon, S., Laxon, S. W., Polyakov, I., Ivanov, V., Kirillov, S. (2009).Vertical mixing at intermediate depths in the Arctic boundary current.Geophysical Research Letters,36(5). 5, pp. doi:10.1029/2008GL036792
Rippeth, T.P. (2005). Mixing in seasonally stratified shelf seas: a shifting paradigm.Phil. Trans. Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 363, 2837-2854.
TPRippeth, P Wiles, MR Palmer, J Sharples and J Tweddle (2009).The diapcynal nutrient flux and shear-induced diapcynal mixing in the seasonally stratified western Irish Sea.Continental Shelf Research,29, 1580 -1587.
