Thomas Haine

My overall research interest is the fundamental understanding of the physics of the basin-scale ocean and its role in Earth's climate. I am involved in improving estimates of the geophysical state of the ocean circulation through analysis of field data and circulation model results. The subpolar North Atlantic ventilation process (rates, pathways, variability, and mechanisms) interests me in particular. I also investigate key physical processes that maintain the state of the extra-tropical upper ocean focusing on fluid dynamics and thermodynamics and their role in controlling sea surface temperature variability over years to decades. Knowledge of these processes is vital if we are to describe and understand climatic fluctuations on time-scales of years to decades. At these low frequencies one must accept that the ocean and atmosphere are components of a coupled system. Understanding low frequency natural climate perturbations is clearly a problem of special current relevance. Further, explaining natural climate variability is a pre-requisite of addressing man-kind's effect on global climate.