University of Gothenburg
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  4. Sebastiaan Swart

Sebastiaan Swart

Professor

Department of Marine Sciences
Telephone
+46 723-66 76 72
Mail
sebastiaan.swart@marine.gu.se
Visiting address
Medicinaregatan 7B
413 90 Göteborg
Room number
5456

About Sebastiaan Swart

Personal research website: www.sebswart.com

The high latitudes of the globe are perceived as a litmus to the state of the Earth’s climate and health. It is in these regions where environmental change, caused by a warming climate, is often most obvious. Despite this, our understanding of how the polar ocean and ocean-ice spheres interact and behave are poor, which is largely driven by the critical scarcity of scientific observations in these regions due to their remote and hostile nature. We require to significantly better understand the ocean processes that govern air-sea exchange, particularly when impacting the cryosphere. Our current capabilities in observations and modelling are insufficient to reveal the dynamical processes and variability occurring at the air-sea interface, below the ocean surface and principally the ocean covered by ice. My particular research interest includes upper ocean processes and air-sea-ice interaction and its associated role in biogeochemical processes. A current focus is on developing a better understanding in the Southern Ocean Marginal Ice Zone. To effectively observe these processes and regions require sophisticated observing techniques. I make use of autonomous vehicles, such as ocean gliders, to collect observations of the ocean’s surface and interior. I am a sea-going oceanographer and participated in 12 research cruises and was Chief Scientist on four of them to the Antarctic. I am currently the co-chair of the Southern Ocean Observing System (www.soos.aq).