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Baylor Fox-Kemper, assistant professor of atmospheric and ocean sciences at the University of Colorado has won the Ocean Sciences Early Career Award from the American Geophysical Union.

Fox-Kemper was cited for his “fundamental contributions to understanding the oceanic general circulation, the dynamical nature of the eddy-filled oceanic mixed layer, and their connection to climate modeling.”

He will accept the award during the AGU fall meeting in San Francisco. That meeting happens every December.

Fox-Kemper, who is also a fellow at the CU Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, took time from his research recently to answer five questions from Clint Talbott:

You have described the complexity of the ocean system as “enormous.” You have also noted that basic climate forcing has been well understood for decades. How much more do we know about oceans and climate today vs. a century ago?

A century ago, (Svante) Arrhenius had just described the basic functioning of the greenhouse effect and estimated its response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide (1908, “Worlds in the Making”). Of course, for him this analysis was largely a matter of curiosity. He hopefully suggested our burning of coal might prevent future ice ages and warm colder regions. Arrhenius’ result was not widely accepted for some time, although it correctly estimates many important impacts of the most important greenhouse gases.

As for oceanography, the 19th and early 20th century were the beginnings of the transformation of oceanography from a cartographic and trade-based endeavor (as it was for most of the great explorers) to a scientific mission. The cruises of the Beagle (Darwin’s ship), the Challenger (which first mapped the Mid-Atlantic Ridge), the ice-locked Fram (Nansen’s ship) and the quests for the poles captivated the public along with the exciting tale of recent oceanographic discoveries from Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” Sonar was soon to be discovered, and the upcoming cruise of the German Meteor expedition was to be the most ambitious scientific cruise to date.

Now, through satellites, autonomous floats and gliders, we take more measurements of the ocean every month than all of the oceanographic observations before 1970 combined. We know more about the prehistoric changes to Earth’s climate from geological examination of rocks, fossils, ice cores, corals, tree rings and other preserved sources. And we are able to use computers to simulate the most important processes of the Earth system. With these models, we now simulate the past, present and future Earth with increasing robustness and learn about the consequences of our actions on the many processes that interact to produce a habitable climate.

Climate modeling is sometimes discussed in the news media. How would you characterize its strengths and areas for improvement today?

Climate modeling used to be severely limited by the capabilities of computers. In the late 1950s, the computers used to do the first weather simulations by Von Neumann, Fjortoft and Charney and climate simulations by Jim Hansen, Suki Manabe and Kirk Bryan were about 50 times less powerful (ENIAC, roughly 400 multiplication operations per second) than today’s smartphones (20,000 multiplication operations per second). Today’s supercomputers are a quarter of a billion times more powerful than those early machines.

Arrhenius predicted the change to Earth’s climate more than a century ago. The computers today are not only reproducing his result, but they are giving better and better impressions of what will change on a regional scale. The earliest climate models had no ocean and an atmospheric grid of 500 to 600 kilometers—so only one grid point with temperatures and winds at perhaps six altitudes to represent all of the nearly 270,000 square kilometers of Colorado.

Today’s high-resolution climate models have more than 100 grid points with 30 vertical levels—and they are run for hundreds of years under dozens of different scenarios from which humanity is choosing (from burn all the coal to mostly green energy). These computers don’t change the basic physics and chemistry that Arrhenius studied, but they allow us to understand the impact of changing atmospheric chemistry on local weather, precipitation and even ecosystems with increasing specificity and accuracy.

My research focuses on improving the representation of small-scale ocean physics—covering the phenomena from about 4 meters to 400 kilometers. We have been able to approximate the behavior of these phenomena in climate models since the mid-90s, but every improvement we make lends increased robustness and validity to the overall simulation of climate—and its sensitivity to human activities. At the present rate of increasing computer speed, we will not be able to simulate all of the vast and diverse oceans in their detailed beauty until about the year 2200. In the meantime, my goal is to improve our present simulations so small-scale physics plays a correct part in the larger Earth System models.

I notice that you taught Introduction to Physical Oceanography (subtitled “Notions for the Motions in the Oceans”) in three recent years and that you published some of the best short papers from the class in proceeding volumes. The apparent effort you put into this suggests that you enjoy teaching. What do you find rewarding about teaching?

The papers you mention are one of the most rewarding things that have happened in my teaching career. When I arrived at Colorado, I thought it would be fun (and maybe also educational) to see what the incoming students could do if I challenged them with a no-limits task. So I tried making all of the assignments short research papers.

The papers were evaluated by peer review, so the students got a chance to evaluate each other just as professional scientists evaluate each other’s journal articles. I was delighted to see that virtually every student had at least one noteworthy paper, and the diversity of approaches they tried and regions they studied amazed me. From estimating the available tidal power for human use in British estuaries to the Luzon Strait through flow and what exactly makes the surfing at Mavericks great, the students had one good idea after another. Each was backed up with data from freely available sources like NASA and NOAA, and based on the topics we were studying in class. Many of the graduate students now doing research in my group decided to join the effort because of this class.

I find teaching rewarding for at least two reasons. The first, which inspired the papers above, is that I really like to see students engage in new ways with the material. Not only do they surprise themselves, but they surprise me. Their approaches are often novel, funny, inspired, and deep.

The other reason is to spread science. My Ph.D. adviser’s adviser was part of the group to first forecast weather using a computer. His adviser’s adviser was the Professor Hertz after whom we name the unit of frequency. So when a student of mine uses a multi-gigahertz laptop to study weather and climate, it evokes generations of scientists collaborating and learning from each other to understand and improve our world. The ingredients every scientist uses have a similar heritage, and teaching is the way that we pass them on for future improvement and expansion.

You’ve won the American Geophysical Union’s Early Career Ocean Sciences Award “in recognition of significant contributions to and promise in the ocean sciences.” That’s quite an honor. How does it feel?

I study phenomena in one small corner of one small part of our amazing universe. I am honored that my fellow oceanographers are interested in the small corner I have chosen, and I hope that the pieces I have studied help us to understand part of our role in that universe.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

I got a start and remained in science because of my exceptional group of teachers, friends and family. Without them, I never could have figured out what I have.