OS People

Justin Small, Project Scientist II

Research

I work in the Oceanography group of the Climate and Global Dynamics Division of NCAR. My main research is on the representation of small scale features in the ocean and how they affect the atmosphere and climate. Examples of such features include fronts, eddies, and coastal upwelling. Sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies and gradients associated with these features affect the thermodynamic and dynamic structure of the atmospheric boundary layer, and in some cases, the deeper troposphere. For these studies I utilize satellite data, in situ data where available, and nested regional climate modeling. Many current global climate models exhibit significant biases in properties such as sea surface temperature, especially in upwelling regions and western boundary currents. My current projects use the Community Earth System Model, either at global high-resolution, or with a nested Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) (Shchepetkin and McWilliams, 2005) to study the processes affecting bias and frontal-scale air-sea interaction.

Recent Publications

Small, R. J. and 18 co-authors, 2014. A new synoptic scale resolving global climate simulation using the Community Earth System Model. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, DOI: 10.1002/2014MS000363.

Small, R. J., Tomas, R. A., Bryan, F. O., 2014. Storm track response to Ocean Fronts in a global high-resolution climate model. Climate Dynamics, doi 10.1007/s00382-013-1980-9.

Kohei Takatama, Shoshiro Minobe, Masaru Inatsu, and R. Justin Small, 2014. Diagnostics for near-surface wind response to the Gulf Stream in a regional atmospheric model. Journal of Climate 2014, in press, e-View doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00668.1

Education

PhD from National Oceanography Centre (formerly Southampton Oceanography Centre), 2000
"The refraction, shoaling and structure of non-linear internal waves at a continental shelf margin", supervised by Professor Steve Thorpe

MSc (Distinction) in Meteorology, from Reading University, 1990
"Mid-Latitude Storm Tracks in the Northern Hemisphere", supervised by Professor Brian Hoskins

BSc (Hons) 2.1 in Mathematics, from Nottingham University, 1988