Check out the latest updates from our faculty!
Dr.
Kevin Reed is one of the 2021 Discovery Prize Finalists for his project, “Attribution of the human influence on the 2020 and 2021 hurricane seasons.”
Kevin Reed is an associate professor in Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. Prior to coming to Stony Brook, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and a science policy advisor in the U.S. Senate through the American Geophysical Union Congressional Science Fellowship. Reed received his PhD and MS in atmospheric science from the University of Michigan. He is a member of the U.S. Climate Variability and Predictability Program Scientific Steering Committee and president-elect of the science and society section of the American Geophysical Union.
At Stony Brook, Reed founded and leads the Climate Extremes Modeling (CEM) Group, which is composed of a diverse team of undergraduate and graduate students and scientists. Using next-generation climate models and simplified and reduced complexity modeling frameworks to explore the link between extreme weather and the global climate, the CEM Group advances scientific understanding of climate change’s impact and develops methodologies to better translate state-of-the-art science for climate adaptation applications and policies.
Dr. Christopher Wolfe has received a new Award from the National Science Foundation (Phys. Oc.) in support of the project “Mixing Inferred from Coherent Mesoscale Eddies (MICME)”, in the amount $169,702, for the period 3/1/21 – 2/28/23
Dr. Christopher Wolfe
Mesoscale eddies are the “weather” events of the ocean and have important impacts on the transport and mixing of heat, momentum, carbon, and other tracers in the ocean. With the advent of satellite observations and high-resolution numerical models, the observed eddies are increasingly viewed as individual coherent structures. Coherent mesoscale eddies are distinct objects with closed circulations around their cores that can be tracked over their lifetime, typically months to years. They can be identified from satellite sea surface height and temperature observations and are nearly ubiquitous in the ocean. Despite advances in the understanding of the phenomenology of coherent mesoscale eddies, there is still significant uncertainty regarding their role in the tracer transport.
The ocean components of modern climate models are of insufficient resolution to resolve mesoscale eddies. Eddy tracer transport is typically parameterized as a diffusive process whereby the tracer flux is related to the large-scale tracer gradient by an eddy diffusivity. Variations in the magnitude and spatial pattern of tracer diffusivity in these models can potentially lead to large differences in their simulated climates. This sensitivity has motivated efforts to make observational estimates of the ocean’s mesoscale eddy diffusivity using satellite and in situ data. Of particular relevance to this proposal are Lagrangian methods using surface drifter tracks and those using satellite-derived velocity fields to advect numerical Lagrangian particles. Accurate pointwise diffusivity estimates require averages over large numbers (order of hundreds) of drifters, but the spatial distribution of surface drifters is generally sparse and many drifter tracks are contaminated by wind effects. Further, the convergence time of particle-based diffusivity estimates is long (on the order of a month) for both in situ drifters and numerically-advected particles, which makes the estimates inefficient and allows measurement errors to accumulate.
In vortex-dominated 2D turbulence, particle dispersion is determined by the motion of coherent vortices and the diffusivity can be accurately estimated from the dispersion of the vortices themselves. We have recently demonstrated that this result extends to two-layer quasigeostrophic turbulence and that these diffusivity estimates converge much more quickly than those based on the dispersion of uniformly distributed Lagrangian particles. This raises the possibility that the diffusivity in the ocean can also be estimated from the dispersion of coherent mesoscale eddies which are routinely tracked by AVISO. The overall objective of this project is to quantify the impact of coherent eddies on mesoscale mixing. The central hypothesis is that the dispersion of coherent eddies will provide an efficient estimate of the mesoscale tracer diffusivity in the ocean.
Dr. 
Sara Hamideh has received a new award from the National Science Foundation (NSF), via a sub-award from Missouri University of Science and Technology, in the amount $50,000, in support of her role in the project “SCC-CIVIC-PG Track B: Community Resilience Micro-Bonds to Balance Cost and Social Equity Among Stakeholders”
The US government invests $1 billion annually in hazard mitigation, but the resilience investment gap for the US is estimated to exceed $520 billion. The resilience gap across different communities and population groups is widening due to growing economic inequality in the US, which is further exacerbated by hazard events which turn into disasters. Therefore, finding innovative strategies and methods to fund socially equitable resilience improvements is essential for communities to thrive and survive. Catastrophe Bonds and Disaster Resilience Bonds are fairly mainstream topics and are used as a mechanism to raise money from investors for infrastructure improvement, but less attention is paid to social equity, a factor that underpins community resilience. A community is made up of more than the physical parts of the infrastructure and involves people, relationships, networks, all working as part of social institutions such as schools, hospitals, and service entities. Therefore, in this project, a new type of bonds, termed herein as a Coastal Community Resilience Micro-Bonds (CCRMB), will be implemented.
In this project, innovative strategies and methods to fund socially equitable resilience improvements, which are essential for communities to thrive and survive, will be developed and implemented. Infrastructure-focused bonds are helpful for communities, but still leave a substantial gap in the disaster resilience bond paradigm, because repair of physical infrastructure is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for community resilience. The goal of this CIVIC Innovation Challenge grant is to promote the contributions of various sectors and financial agents of a community to invest in resilience initiatives and provide innovative mechanisms for them to do so. By leveraging the CCRMB, equitable recovery of both physical and social services and institutions can be achieved through staged and comprehensive planning and investment prior to disasters. To accomplish this requires interdisciplinary modeling of the multiple hazards experienced by coastal communities, and the city of Charleston, SC will be the focus community for implementation of the proposed CCRMB. This project is in response to the Civic Innovation Challenge program, Track B Resilience to Natural Disasters and is a collaboration between NSF and the Department of Homeland Security.
Press Briefings
Science Magazine: Follow The Smell Of The Ocean To Find Where Marine Predators Feed
Together with Dr. Joe Warren from Stony Brook University, they then used the device to conduct a survey in June 2019 off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a summer feeding grounds for many baleen whale species. Researchers took chemical measurements, recorded zooplankton and fish biomass, and whale locations over a series of transects across the ocean surface. Also ran in Bioengineer.org, and Phys.org.
Phys.org: How much is a clam worth to a coastal community?
In a study in Environmental Science & Technology, shellfish biologists, economists, and modelers from NOAA Fisheries, NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, and Stony Brook University used a transferable replacement cost methodology to estimate the value of oyster and clam aquaculture to nitrogen reduction in Greenwich, Connecticut. Also ran in Science Magazine.
CCWT Research Finds Likely Source of 1,4-dioxane in Wastewater and Novel Approach for Removal
Emerging research from the New York State Center for Clean Water Technology affirms household products as a likely source of 1,4-dioxane in wastewater, but also reveals a novel approach for removing this chemical and other contaminants before it enters groundwater.
- News12 – Scientists: Household Porducts Contaminate Long Island Groundwater, But a Solution Could be on the Horizon
- Newsday – Study: Low Cost Water Filtration Could Reduce Likely Human Carcinogen
- Long Island Press – Stony Brook Researchers Unveil Tech for Newer, Cleaner Septic Systems
- WSHU – Long Island Clean Water Center Hopes Biofilters are the Answer to Remove Harmful Chemical in Water
- Phys.org – New Approach to Removing Toxins from Wastewater
- Innovate LI – Clean Water Center Eyes Natural Anti-Pollutant Shield
- Times Beacon Record: SBU scientist finds nitrogen filter also reduces possible carcinogen
Dr. Christopher Gobler, director of the New York State Center for Clean Water Technology, and Dr. Arjun Venkatesan, the CCWT’s associate director for Drinking Water Initiatives, recently published two studies in which they highlighted how their efforts to reduce nitrogen also cut back on 1,4 dioxane, a likely carcinogen. Gobler, who is also endowed chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, is leading a center whose mission is to solve the nitrogen overloading crisis in Long Island’s groundwater and surface water by developing alternative onsite septic systems.
Health News Digest.com: Clean Water Technology Center Reveals New Approach to Removing Toxins in Wastewater
The New York State Center for Clean Water Technology (CCWT) at Stony Brook University has made a series of critical discoveries regarding a new approach to protecting Long Island’s drinking water, groundwater, and surface waters. Also ran in Smart Water Magazine
Our Shared Seas – Innovations in Sewage Pollution Solutions: An Interview with Dr. Christopher Gobler
