| NSF Org: |
OCE Division Of Ocean Sciences |
| Recipient: |
|
| Initial Amendment Date: | February 7, 2014 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | February 2, 2018 |
| Award Number: | 1332750 |
| Award Instrument: | Continuing Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Baris Uz
bmuz@nsf.gov (703)292-4557 OCE Division Of Ocean Sciences GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | February 15, 2014 |
| End Date: | January 31, 2020 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $1,342,182.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $1,342,182.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2015 = $255,209.00 FY 2016 = $267,808.00 FY 2017 = $281,023.00 FY 2018 = $294,925.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
|
| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
266 WOODS HOLE RD WOODS HOLE MA US 02543-1535 (508)289-3542 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
|
| Primary Place of Performance: |
266 Woods Hole Road Woods Hole MA US 02543-1535 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
|
| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
|
| Parent UEI: |
|
| NSF Program(s): |
APPLIED MATHEMATICS, PHYSICAL OCEANOGRAPHY, ARCSS-Arctic System Science, ANS-Arctic Natural Sciences, Climate & Large-Scale Dynamics |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001516DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001617DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001718DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 0100XXXXDB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
|
| Program Element Code(s): |
|
| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
Overview: The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Summer Program (GFD) is a ten-week program of interdisciplinary research and graduate training. GFD began in 1959 and has been held for all 54 years of its lifetime at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Intellectual Merit: The GFD program has two equally important governing purposes. The first is to provide the right environment and nurture the right atmosphere to foster the transfer of ideas between a wide range of subjects including applied mathematics, oceanography, fluid dynamics, geophysics, geology, meteorology, astrophysics, planetary science, engineering, and physics. The second is to train through research a small group of graduate students (typically nine or ten), who are charged with conducting an advanced project for the bulk of the summer, and to present their results in both oral and written reports during the final week. These two purposes are by design intertwined: the student research projects are individually or jointly supervised by members of the GFD Staff, a group of summer-long participants who are academics from the diverse fields represented at GFD and thereby, often catalyze new long-lasting collaborations between multiple advisors and their students.
Each year, the Program focuses on a particular topic relevant to geophysical fluid dynamics, often selected to address the needs of the scientific community at the time. The summer opens with two weeks of principal lectures on the theme. After these two pedagogical weeks, daily seminars are given by invited visitors throughout the remainder of the Program, both on work related to the theme, but also on topics from geophysical fluid dynamics in general. The idea is to expose the participants to a new subject, with its particular phenomenology and techniques, while simultaneously maintaining a broader perspective, thus setting the stage for interdisciplinary interactions. In the next five years, the following themes will be explored, each of which has a strong societal relevance and interdisciplinary nature: Climate Dynamics; Bio-fluid mechanics (Synchronized Swimming); Ice-Ocean Interaction: Submarine Melting; Geophysical Fluid Dynamics and environmental sustainability; and Stochastic Effects in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics.
Broader Impacts: By virtue of its very discursive and interactive style, GFD naturally promotes the dissemination of scientific results among researchers from very different backgrounds; techniques from different disciplines are readily transferred across disciplinary borders, and parallels between problems in very different fields can be easily appreciated. GFD advances discovery and understanding, while promoting teaching and training by involving graduate students in research. The Program often introduces the graduate students to prospective employers at the postdoctoral level and beyond, and broadens their scientific network; GFD has in the past helped to attract many extremely talented young scientists to the US for postdoctoral research and academic positions. The topics selected for the proposed five-year cycle have strong broader impacts; for example aiming at improving future projections of climate change, with impact on human societies and well-being, and at improving the representation of ice sheet dynamics in climate models, hence the ability to accurately predict sea-level rise, an issue of vital and important societal concern. An entire summer will also be dedicated to environmental sustainability with a broader impact on energy and resource use. Finally, the annual GFD Public Lecture targeted toward a general audience introduces the local community (both scientific and general public) to the science of geophysical fluid dynamics and its many important and interesting applications.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Summer Program (GFD) is a ten-week program of interdisciplinary research and graduate training. The Program began in 1959 and has been held for all 61 years of its lifetime at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with the purpose of creating an atmosphere to foster the transfer of ideas between a wide range of subjects including applied mathematics, astrophysics, fluid dynamics, geology, geophysics, meteorology, oceanography, planetary science, engineering, and physics.
Each year, the Program runs with a theme on a particular topic relevant to geophysical fluid dynamics. The summer opens with two weeks of principal lectures on the theme. Invited visitors continue to give seminars throughout the remainder of the Program, both on work related to the theme, but also on topics from geophysical fluid dynamics in general. The idea is to expose the participants to a new subject, with its particular phenomenology and techniques, while simultaneously maintaining a broader perspective, thus setting the stage for interdisciplinary interactions.
The central focus of the program is the training in research of a small group of graduate students, the GFD Fellows (typically between nine and eleven), who are charged with conducting an advanced research project for the bulk of the summer. The research projects are individually or jointly supervised by members of the GFD staff, a group of summer-long participants (both faculty and invited visitors) in the Program who are established academics from the diverse fields represented at GFD. The fellows have the opportunity to meet and learn about the research of the many short-term visitors. At the end of the summer the fellows give a public talk about the research project they have been conducting with the guidance of one (or more) of the GFD faculty members. They also produce a written report that is included in the annual GFD volume. The majority of these projects eventually lead to scientific journal articles.
The Program is administered by the GFD Faculty, a group of 22 academics and scientists from a range of backgrounds and home institutions. The GFD Faculty is responsible for selecting the theme and directors for each program, the principal lecturers, the Fellows, and encouraging participation by visiting scholars.
During the course of this grant the summer themes have been:
2018: Sustainable Fluid Dynamics
2017: Ice-Ocean Interactions
2016: Fluid-Structure Interaction in the Living Environment
2015: Stochastic Processes in Atmospheric and Oceanic Dynamics
2014: Climate Physics and Dynamics
The GFD Program maintains a website (http://www.whoi.edu/gfd/) where the lecture schedules, including Fellows? talks, and other materials, e.g., the annual GFD Proceedings Volume and newsletters, from the program are archived and made available to the community.
We have taken vigorous steps in the past two decades, and in particular in the last five-year cycle, to enrich the GFD community with more diversity, and to ensure that it is an inclusive and welcoming environment for research and scientific enquiry. Our efforts to ensure diversity are being applied at all levels of the academic participation in the program, and is a core objective and responsibility of the Executive Committee, a subgroup of the Faculty elected during the course of this grant to pick up the mantle from the original founders of GFD.
Lastly, the GFD Program holds an annual public lecture, the Sears Lecture, which is given by an invited speaker on a GFD-related topic and targeted toward a general audience. The talk is widely advertised to the larger Woods Hole community and is open to the public. The goal is to introduce the local community (both scientific and general public) to fluid dynamics, applied mathematics and geophysical fluid dynamics and their many important and interesting applications.
The Sears Lectures during the course of this grant have been:
2018: Professor John O. Dabiri Biological Propulsion in (and of?) the Ocean
2017: Professor Richard Alley How High Will the Tide Be? Ice Sheets and Sea-level Rise
2016: Professor Mimi Koehl Swimming and crawling in a turbulent world
2015: Professor Susan Solomon Ozone Depletion: A Science and Policy Success Story
2014: Professor Cecilia Bitz The Future of Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice
Last Modified: 06/15/2020
Modified by: Claudia Cenedese
Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.
