Professor Kelvin Richards' research team has used a special high frequency measuring device to detect large, shallow velocity structures around the equator. He has identified vertical structures that have a vertical velocity scale as small as 2 meters and lateral velocity scale on the order of a hundred kilometers. These structures are responsible for lateral and vertical mixing around the equator that could have an impact on the larger currents in the ocean. Through his current position at the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC), his research is partly funded by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other smaller projects. He currently advises three (3) graduate students, one of which, Paulo Calil, was awarded a 2007 UH/MHPCC Engagement Grant. Paulo ran his simulations on Hurricane, the IBM cluster that has been recently retired from MHPCC. You can read more about that work on the generation of submesoscale vorticity filaments in the ocean and their impact on primary productivity in an island wake on the engagement grant page of this web site.
Professor Richards is originally from the United Kingdom, where he received his Ph.D. at the University of Southampton then continued with his post-doctoral position at the University of Cambridge. He worked at the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences and was faculty at the University of Southampton until six (6) years ago, when the IPRC lured him away from his homeland. He has a dual position as a professor in Oceanography and theme leader in the IPRC for Regional Processes. He continues to teach the class Tracers in the Ocean, a graduate class that covers transport, diffusion, and reaction of tracers in the ocean.
For more information on Prof. Richards’ group and research, go to his web site at http://iprc.soest.hawaii.edu/people/richards.html.
