The Southern Ocean plays an outsized role in Earth's climate system, absorbing a disproportionate share of anthropogenic CO2 and heat, driving global nutrient cycles, and sustaining some of the most productive marine ecosystems on the planet. Yet its remoteness and harsh conditions have long made systematic observation a formidable challenge, until recently. The maturation of the BGC-Argo float program, and the decade of autonomous, depth-resolved measurements it has generated across the Southern Ocean, is transforming our ability to monitor this critical basin at seasonal to decadal timescales. In this talk, I present a research program that exploits this emerging observational capacity: combining satellite remote sensing, BGC-Argo floats, and machine learning to track how Southern Ocean biogeochemistry and carbon cycling are changing, from the scale of individual coastal polynyas to the basin-scale perspective.

*Refreshments: 12-12:30 PM, ES&T Atrium