Sam Cornish

I am trying to understand the physical controls on the storage of freshwater in, and export of freshwater from, the Arctic Ocean. Although the Arctic is a comparatively small ocean, it has outsized implications for ocean circulation and climate dynamics, and is changing rapidly. It also hosts a fascinating marine biology system and is a globally significant carbon sink. In order achieve this research aim, I am using a computationally efficient technique to statistically untangle the variability in long control runs of fully coupled climate models, and find out how the freshwater content would respond to a persistent change in the different modes of atmospheric circulation that dominate over the Arctic. This is useful in a predictive application, and helps us understand the physics underpinning the storage and export system.