I'm Fraser, a first year DPhil student studying at the University of Oxford on the NERC funded Environmental Research DTP. My research interests currently revolve around Ocean dynamics and how we model them, however, I'm also really interested in the role of the Ocean in the climate system and how its dynamics are affected by and effect the climate - particularly when related to anthropogenic forcings.
I've just started my DPhil project which looks at how oceanic western boundary currents cross the equator. The project revolves around a mathematical result which states that when an ocean current crosses the equator its potential vorticity must change sign, an apparent contradiction of the conservation of potential vorticity. The project is largely computational and involves running very high resolution models to try and resolve some of the instabilities which develop when the fluids have the wrong pv.
In the past I've worked on ocean carbon cycle modelling, trying to understand how clouds produced by ship exhausts form and how exposure to air pollution depends upon the mode of transport taken.