Marlos Goes

My research

I am mainly interested in ocean circulation, climate change and data analysis. Specifically in understanding the patterns of ocean circulation which are related to climate variability, and environmental policies to combat climate change.
Currently, I've been focusing on the Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC), which can be defined as the balance of mass and heat transport in the ocean, and is the responsible for the large scale distribution of heat on Earth. My projects include understanding the interaction between the Meridional Overturning Circulation and the equatorial ciruculation and how eddy variability is related to the strength of the MOC flow. This is done with a simplified shallow water model.
On the same topic, I also use the University of Victoria model (UVic ESCM), which is a coupled model of intermediate complexity to assess how climate sensitivity and ocean diffusivity affect the representation of ocean tracers. Information contained in ocean tracers patterns can constrain model parameters and reduce uncertainties in projections of the Meridional Overturning Circulation. Also, observational arrays will be designed and deployed in the model to address how different observations can improve the fingerprint for variability of the MOC.
Together with Ryan Sriver, Mike Mann and Klaus Keller, I've been working on how observations of the ocean diffusivity driven by Tropical Cyclones can change air-sea fluxes and the ocean variability in the UVic model.
On environmental policies and decision-making, I've been working with Klaus Keller and Nancy Tuana on analysing the cost-benefit of alternative strategies, such as geoengineering, applied to tackle climate change. For this we use an economical-geophysical model (DICE). This work has been cited recently in the (NYT webpage)