Virtual Centre for Ocean Satellite Salinity

Dr. Youyu Lu

Name: Dr. Youyu Lu

Email: LuY@mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Field of Study: Ocean Modelling

My research topics cover a broad range of space and time scales. These include turbulence and its parameterization, tide-, wind- and buoyancy-driven flows in shelf seas, and large-scale ocean circulation. My current research focuses on large-scale ocean modeling and data assimilation. In collaborating with my colleagues at BIO and Dalhousie University, I am working on improving estimates of the ocean state through assimilating a variety of observational data into a model. We are hoping such studies will lead to a better understanding of the variability of the ocean under current climate conditions, as well as providing better initial conditions for predicting future climate changes.

In the last decade, especially since WOCE (World Ocean Circulation Experiment), we have seen substantial advancements in our ability to observe the worlds' oceans. Satellites play an important role in this advancement both as platforms for carrying remote sensing instruments and as communications tools for in situ-observations (such as the Argo floats). Remote sensing of surface salinity will help remove any remaining uncertainties in determining the surface freshwater flux into the ocean. This is vital information required in ocean modeling.

While at work I mostly sit in front of computers and analyze observational and modeling data of the World Ocean. My mind sometimes wanders into the earlier days of oceanography when the pioneers risked their lives to explore the Arctic and the Southern Oceans. I greatly respect those colleagues who spend time each year on ships taking measurements on the stormy Scotian Shelf and in the icy Labrador Sea, and those who develop instruments to observe the ocean from space.

I grew up in a farming village in northern China. The coast of Yellow Sea is within 100 km of my hometown. After my undergraduate training in fluid mechanics I came to study oceanography and since then have always been living on a coast: Qingdao (China), St. John's (Newfoundland), Victoria (British Columbia), Halifax (Nova Scotia), and La Jolla (California). In my spare time I love to visit fishing villages, as well as farms in Nova Scotia.

Recent publications

McDougall, T.J., R. J. Greatbatch, and Y. Lu: 2002: On conservation equations in oceanography: - How accurate are Boussinesq ocean models? Journal of Physical Oceanography, vol 32, 1574-1584.

Greatbatch, R.J., Y. Lu, and Y. Cai: Relaxing the Boussinesq approximation in ocean circulation models . Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, vol 18, 1911-1923.

Lu, Y., K.R. Thompson, and D. G. Wright, 2001: Tidal currents and mixing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence: An application of the incremental approach to data assimilation. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Science, vol 58, 723-735.

Lu, Y., 2001: Including non-Boussinesq effects in Boussinesq ocean circulation models. Journal of Physical Oceanography, vol 31, 1616-1622.

Lu, Y., D.G. Wright, and D. Brickman, 2001: Internal tide generation over topography: experiments with a free-surface z-level ocean model. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, vol 18, 1076-1091.

Lu, Y., R. G. Lueck and D. Huang, 2000: Turbulence characteristics in a tidal channel. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 30, 855-867.

Lu, Y. and R. G. Lueck, 1999: Using a broadband ADCP in a tidal channel: Part II. Turbulence. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, vol 16, 1568-1579.

Greatbatch, R.J, Y. Lu, B. de Young, and J.C. Larsen, 1995: The variation of transport through the Straits of Florida: A barotropic model study. Journal of Physical Oceanography, vol 25, 2762-2740.

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