The Physics of Oceans and Atmospheres (POA) research discipline contains two core subdisciplines: Physical oceanography and atmospheric sciences.
Teaching and Research Faculty
Andrea Allan, Jack Barth, Jesse Cusack, Simon de Szoeke, Edward Dever, Melanie Fewings, Jonathan Fram, Amrapalli Garanaik, Jessica Garwood, Jennifer Hutchings, Andrea Jenney, Mike Kosro, Jim Lerczak, Ricardo Matano, Phil Mote, Jonathan Nash, Larry O'Neill, Tuba Özkan-Haller, Brodie Pearson, David Rupp, Roger Samelson, Andreas Schmittner, Kipp Shearman, Karen Shell, Emily Shroyer, Nick Siler, Eric Skyllingstad, Yvette Spitz, Justin Wettstein, Greg Wilson, Ed Zaron, Seth Zippel
POA Email Lists
Go to CEOAS Email Lists (on SharePoint; login required) and search for "poa" using Ctrl-F (Windows, Linux, Chrome OS), ⌘-F (Mac), or tap (upload) then Find on Page (phone or tablet).
Physics of Oceans and Atmospheres Seminar Series
Tuesdays from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Burt 193 and on Zoom
Spring Term 2026
Information will be updated as it becomes available.
If you would like to present, are hosting a visitor, know someone who might be interested, or have speaker suggestions, please contact Jihun Jung who is organizing this term's POA seminars. Also welcome are suggestions for non-OSU visiting speakers. POA discipline seminar funds are available to provide partial travel support for external visitors if needed.
- April 14 – Christo Buizert (OSU CEOAS), The ocean heat valve: AMOC and planetary energy budget during abrupt glacial climate change
- April 21 – Nick Siler (OSU CEOAS), The mountains are getting shorter: orographic precipitation change in the western US
- May 5 – James Girton (University of Washington)
Title: The promise, potential, and pitfalls of globally-distributed subsurface internal wave and mixing measurements
Abstract: Internal waves are responsible for the bulk of the diffusive mixing in the deep ocean, with implications for the rate of downward penetration of heat and carbon dioxide, as well as for the structure of the meridional overturning circulation. And yet global ocean models are far from being able to simulate the full internal wave spectrum--a necessary precursor to simulating how oceanic shear responds to different varieties of forcing and how energy cascades through internal waves to wave breaking, turbulence and mixing. As part of the "Global Internal Waves" initiative of the National Oceanographic Partnership Program, a global array of autonomous profiling floats is being deployed to measure shear, strain, and turbulent mixing, using a burst-sampling approach to separate internal waves from low-frequency motions. This project, SQUID (Sampling QUantitative Internal-wave Distributions), aims to improve the broad-scale characterization of internal wave climates, relate turbulent mixing levels to forcing by wind, tides, and topography, and evaluate the large-scale (low-mode) internal waves present in the latest generation of high-resolution global models. At the same time, SQUID is compiling and sharing past datasets from velocity profiling floats and working to transition observational results into model validation metrics and subgrid-scale mixing parameterizations. This talk presents the progress and findings of the SQUID project to date and invites collaboration on the future of autonomous shear and mixing measurements.
- May 12 – Xavier Prochaska, Title TBD
- May 19 – Kyle Nardi, Title TBD
- May 26 – Inés Leyba, Title TBD
- June 2 – Open (If you are interested in giving a talk, contact Jihun Jung.)
- June 9 – Bethan Wynne-Cattanach, Title TBD