Francois PrimeauAssociate Professor, Earth System Science |
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Research Interests |
Transport of tracers by the global ocean circulation, Dynamics of the wind-driven ocean circulation, Mid-latitude ocean-atmosphere interactions | |
| URL | www.ess.uci.edu/~fprimeau/ | |
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Research Abstract |
The ocean interacts with the rest of the climate system primarily at its surface, where air-sea fluxes imprint on fluid parcels the current physical or chemical state of the atmosphere. When a parcel of sea water is transported below the surface, it becomes shielded from the atmosphere until it resurfaces and communicates past conditions to the atmosphere. The delay between successive visits to the surface imparts to the climate system an important long-term memory. To better understand this process we have developed an off-line ocean transport model as well as diagnostic tools that allow us to determine when and where fluid elements had their last contact with the atmosphere as well as when and where they will make their next contact with the atmosphere. We are applying these tools to simulations of the global ocean circulation in order to track the movement of water masses to and from the ocean surface. Our goal is to determine the sensitivity of transport in ocean models to changes in the parameterizations of convective and eddy mixing as well as in the surface forcing with the ultimate goal of better understanding how a warming climate might affect the oceans long term memory by changing the way fluid is transported to and from the surface. Another application we are pursuing deals with the global carbon cycle. We have coupled the offline ocean transport model to an abiotic carbon chemistry model so that we can use our diagnostic tools to study the invasion into the deep ocean of anthropogenic CO2 as well as the sensitivity of oceanic CO2 uptake to uncertain model parameterizations. |
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| Publications |
25. DeVries, T., and F. Primeau: An Improved Method for Estimating Water-Mass Ventilation Age from Radiocarbon Measurements. submitted to Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 24. Holzer, M., F. W. Primeau, W. M. Smethie, and S. Khatiwala: Where and how long ago was water in the western North Atlantic ventilated? Maximum-entropy inversions of bottle data from WOCE line A20. submitted to JGR-Oceans. 23. Khatiwala S., F. Primeau, and T. Hall 2009: Reconstruction of the history of anthropogenic CO2 concentrations in the ocean Nature, 462, 346-349, doi:10.1038/nature08526 22. DeVries T., and F. Primeau 2009: Atmospheric pCO2 Sensitivity to the Solubility Pump: The Role of the Low-Latitude Ocean Ocean. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 23, GB4020, doi:1029/2009GB003537. 21. Kwon, E. Y., F. Primeau, and J.L. Sarmiento 2009: The impact of remineralization depth on the air-sea carbon balance. Nature Geocience 2, 630-635, doi:10.1038/ngeo612 20. Primeau F., and E. Deleersnijder 2009: On the time to tracer equilibrium in the global ocean. Ocean Science5, 13-28, www.ocean-sci.net/5/13/2009/. 19. Martiny A.C., A.P.K. Tai, D. Veneziano, F. Primeau, and S.W. Chisholm 2008: Taxonomic resolution, ecotypes and the biogeography of Prochlorococcus Environmental Microbiology (2008), DOI: 10.1111/j.1462-2920.2008.01803.x 18. Kwon E.Y., and F. Primeau 2008: Optimization and sensitivity of a global biogeochemistry ocean model using combined in-situ DIC, alkalinity and phosphate data J. Geophys. Res.,113,C08011, doi10.1029/2007JC004520. 17. Li X., and F. Primeau 2008: A Fast Newton-Krylov Solver for Seasonally Varying Global Ocean Biogeochemistry Models Ocean Modelling 23 (2008) 13-20 16. Primeau, F. and D. Newman, 2008: Elongation and Contraction of the Western Boundary Current Extension in a Shallow-Water Model: a Bifurcation Analysis Journal of Physical Oceanography, 38, 1469-1485. 15. Holzer M., and F. Primeau, 2008: The path-density distribution of oceanic surface-to-surface transport J. Geophys., Res. 113, C01018, doi:10.1029/2006JC003976 . 14. Primeau, F. W. and D. Newman, 2007: Bifurcation Structure of a Wind-Driven Shallow Water Model with Layer-Outcropping Ocean Modelling doi:10.1016/j.ocemod.2006.10.003 13. Kwon, E.Y. and F. Primeau, 2006: Sensitivity and Optimization Study of a Biogeochemistry Ocean Model using an Implicit Solver and In-Situ Phosphate Data. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 20, GB4009, doi:10.1029/2005GB002631 12. Krakauer, N.Y., J. T. Randerson, F. W. Primeau, N. Gruber, and D. Menemenlis: Carbon isotope evidence for the latitudinal distribution and wind speed dependence of the air-sea gas transfer velocity. Tellus (2006) 58B, 390-417. 11. Primeau, F. 2006: On the variability of the exponent in the powerlaw depth dependence of POC flux estimated from sediment traps. Deep Sea Research Part I 53 1335-1343 doi:10.1016/j.dsr.2006.06.003. 10. Holzer, M., and F. W. Primeau 2006: The Diffusive Ocean Conveyor Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L14618, doi:10.10292006GL026232. 9. Primeau, F. and M. Holzer 2006: The Ocean's Memory of the Atmosphere: Residence-Time and Ventilation-Rate Distributions of Water Masses. Journal of Physical Oceanography,. 36, 1439-1456 8. Primeau, F., 2005: Characterizing transport between the surface mixed layer and the ocean interior with a forward and adjoint global ocean transport model. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 35, No. 4, pp. 545-564. doi: 10.1175/JPO2699.1 7. Hall, T. and F. W. Primeau, 2004: Separating the Natural and Anthropogenic Air-Sea Flux of CO2: The Indian Ocean . Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L23302, doi:10.1029/2004GL020589. 6. Primeau, F., 2002: Long Rossby wave basin-crossing time and the resonance of low-frequency basin modes. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 32, 2652-2665. 5. Primeau, F., 2002: Multiple equilibria and low-frequency variability of wind-driven ocean currents. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 32, 2232-2256. 4. Primeau, F. and P. Cessi, 2001: Coupling between wind-driven currents and mid-latitude storm tracks. Journal of Climate, 14, 1243-1261. 3. Cessi, P. and F. W. Primeau, 2001: Dissipative selection of low-frequency modes in a reduced gravity basin. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 31, 127-137. 2. Primeau, F. W., 1998: Multiple Equilibria of a Double-Gyre Ocean Model with Super-Slip Boundary Conditions. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 28, 2130-2147. 1. Primeau, F. W. and G. E. Swaters, 1994: The Effect of Alongshore Topographic Variation and Bottom Friction on Shelf Wave Interactions. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 24,1021-1039. |
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Professional Society |
American Geophysical Union |
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| Link to this profile | http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=4739 | |
| Last updated | 11/21/2009 | |