The oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the heat energy and ~40% of the carbon dioxide added to Earth’s climate system over the industrial era. This heat and carbon is pulled around by the ocean circulation, which can act to push water from the surface to the deep ocean and back, or from Equator to poles. Ocean circulation occurs on planetary scales, but also depends on fluid processes that can be as small as millimetres.

In this talk I will show how we use our knowledge of fluid mechanics to formulate global ocean and sea ice models which can be used to investigate the behaviour of ocean circulation and predict future climate states. The advent of high-performance computing has allowed us to simulate the ocean with ever-increasing resolution, revealing new dynamics into how turbulence and mixing alter the ocean circulation and Earth’s climate.

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