Alice Richards

Academic Profile

I graduated with a first class honours degree in physics (MPhys) from the University of Bath in 2018. My final year project involved the passive acoustic monitoring of a marine environment off the west coast of Canada using data from a network of hydrophones fixed to the sea bed. This enabled the investigation of several processes including surface weather and shipping traffic, along with their associated effects. I have also studied a marine glacial environment on scientific expedition in Arctic Norway.

Current Research

My project involves studying the dynamics and heat content of the Arctic Ocean. Specifically, I am investigating what happens to the heat that enters the Arctic from the Atlantic, which circulates around the entire Arctic basin as an Atlantic Water current below 200 m depth. There is enough heat stored in this Atlantic Water to melt all Arctic sea ice within a few years if it was to be brought to the surface in this time. It is therefore important to understand more about where and how this warm Atlantic Water travels, and the mechanisms behind how its heat mixes with other water masses in the Arctic. Investigating how these processes and Atlantic Water heat input are affected by local and remote changes in sea-ice and atmospheric conditions is also key given today’s changing climate.

I hope to tackle these questions using a variety of models, along with data from ice-tethered profilers and long-term moorings in the Arctic.

Publications

Publications will be coming soon

Contact information