Undergraduate Paper Session
‟Lagrangian Coherent Structures and Network Approaches on Interannual Time scales in the Subpolar North Atlantic” by
Micah Chandler <mmchan4208@ung.edu>, University Of North Georgia
(Accepted)
Coauthors: Dr. Jeffrey Landgren
Abstract:
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) plays a crucial role in regulating Earth’s climate by transporting heat and nutrients throughout the ocean. Warm, saline surface waters flow northward, where cooling in subpolar regions increases their density, causing them to sink and return southward as part of the deep ocean circulation. Over the past century, rising greenhouse gas concentrations have begun to alter this circulation, leading to gradual changes in its structure and variability. Within the subpolar North Atlantic, regions such as the Labrador Sea, the West Greenland Current and Disko Bay play a key role, as deep convection, where surface waters cool, sink, and mix into the deep ocean, strongly influences AMOC variability. Improving our understanding of the processes that control convection in these regions will enhance our ability to assess ongoing changes in the AMOC, with the broader goal of informing climate policy. This work develops a new, computationally efficient framework that combines Finite-Time Lyapunov Exponents, Lagrangian Coherent Structures, and graph-theoretic measures to find regions of coherent flow to diagnose how deep convection redistributes water within the subpolar North Atlantic.
Scheduled for: 2026-03-28 10:00 AM: Undergraduate Paper Session #4.1 in Computing and Math 315