106B Oceanography

61 Route 9W - PO Box 1000

Palisades

NY

10964-8000

US

Phone: 

(845) 365-8496

Fax: 

(845) 365-8157

dchen@ldeo.columbia.edu

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I am a physical oceanographer by training and started my career working on continental shelf waves and coastal upwelling. Since then I have been interested in and worked on a broad span of oceanographic and climatic problems of various spatial and temporal scales, ranging from the vertical turbulent mixing in estuaries and shallow seas to the climate fluctuations associated with El Nino and the Southern Oscillation (ENSO). This versatility will continue to be a characteristic of my research, and it allows me to make research plans in different directions.

At present, my research can be generally divided into three areas: 1) continued work on estimating ENSO predictability and finding ways to improve its forecasting; 2) coastal ocean dynamical processes such as frontogenesis, cross-front exchange and dense water discharge; and 3) mechanisms of transcient features such as oceanic mesoscale eddies and typhoon-ocean interaction. The primary tools for all of these studies are a hierarchy of ocean and ocean-atmosphere coupled models, combined with data analysis using both in-situ and satellite observations.