Sophie Wacongne-Speer

Wacongne Photo Associate Scholar / Scientist

Physical Oceanography
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1988

My research interests include equatorial dynamics, inter-hemispheric exchanges, seasonal and longer term variability of the oceanic heat transport and, currently, air-sea interaction and climate dynamics.

I enjoy combining the analysis of observations, synoptic or climatological, with that of numerical simulations. Diagnosing the processes at work in even a flawed simulation helps assess the robustness of both the observations and the possible dynamics behind them, and may help refine the physics of the model.

I am presently involved in two projects:

  1. a study of the upper Southern Ocean circulation in relation with local air-sea fluxes.
  2. the development and analysis of a new coupled climate model (ocean/sea-ice component HYCOM, atmospheric component FSU).