Projects
I have recieved numerous grants and awards that support my research, with a total value of 40 million SEK.
Ongoing funded projects
- PI on European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant project Southern Ocean Fine-Scale Interactions with the Atmosphere (SOFIA), funded 2026-2031.
- PI on Vetenskapsrådet (VR) / Swedish Research Council Establishment Grant: How understanding storms reduces Southern Ocean heat and CO2 uptake uncertainty, funded 2025-2028.
- Carl Tryggers Foundation grant: Observing and quantifying the effects of atmospheric storms on air-sea heat exchange, funded 2026-2028.
SOFIA: Southern Ocean Fine-Scale Interactions with the Atmosphere
PI: Marcel du Plessis
Call: European Research Council Starting Grant under Horizon Europe, 2026-2031
Funding: 2.5m € + 3.75m SEK as GU co-financing
Most of the extra heat trapped by human-made greenhouse gases doesn’t stay in the atmosphere — the ocean absorbs about 93% of it. SOFIA aims to uncover what regulates this heat uptake so we can understand and predict its changes in the future.
Among the world’s oceans, the Southern Ocean plays an outsized role. It acts like a vast heat sponge, taking up as much as 75–83% of the total heat stored by the global ocean. Yet, despite its importance, we still struggle to agree on exactly how and why this region is so effective at absorbing heat. Climate models can disagree by as much as 40%, largely because they don’t capture the fine-scale winds, eddies, and turbulent motions that dominate these waters.
The SOFIA project aims to uncover the key physical processes that move heat between the atmosphere, the ocean surface, and the deep ocean in the stormy Southern Ocean. My research explores two main questions: how powerful storms drive the exchange of heat between air and sea, and how swirling ocean fronts, eddies, and narrow filaments transport that heat into the ocean interior.
To tackle these challenges, I combine cutting-edge coupled ocean-atmosphere simulations with new in-situ observations collected by autonomous robotic platforms in one of the most remote parts of the planet. I also use data from ESA’s Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite to map vertical ocean motion across the entire Southern Ocean.
Together, these efforts will build a clearer and more predictive understanding of how the ocean regulates Earth’s climate — knowledge that’s essential for improving future climate projections.
Understanding storms reduces uncertainty air-sea heat and CO2 exchange
PI: Marcel du Plessis
Call: Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Research Council) Establishment Grant, 2025-2028
Funding: 4.4m SEK
This project explores how storms affect the exchange of heat and carbon between the ocean and the atmosphere in the harsh and rapidly changing environment of the Southern Ocean. We want to understand how storms interact with small-scale ocean motions and sea ice to shape these exchanges and, in the process, improve the formulas used to describe them in climate models.
Our goal is to make climate projections more accurate by combining existing observations with new, cutting-edge measurements. Using data from the only year-round Southern Ocean Flux mooring, I’ll study how storms drive changes in ocean heat and carbon uptake from one season to the next.
I’ll also be part of the Pulse of the Weddell Sea Expedition, where we’ll deploy autonomous instruments such as Wave Gliders, Sailbuoys, and ocean-profiling gliders to measure how the ocean and atmosphere interact in icy regions. Working closely with international collaborators, these efforts will give us a rare, detailed view of ocean conditions during extreme weather events.
To complement these field observations, we’ll use high-resolution satellite data from the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission, which provides unprecedented detail on ocean currents and sea ice patterns. Together, these tools will help us reveal how storms and small-scale ocean movements influence Earth’s climate system.
Finally, we’ll use what we learn to improve the models that simulate heat and carbon exchange between the ocean and atmosphere. By reducing uncertainty in how we represent these processes, we hope to strengthen future weather forecasts and global climate projections — and highlight the growing power of autonomous ocean observing systems.
WHIRLS: The impacts of ocean fine-scale whirls on climate and ecosystems
PI’s: Sebastiaan Swart (GU), Arne Biastoch (GEOMAR), Sabrina Speich (Ecole Normale Supérieure of Paris), Sarah Fawcett (University of Cape Town)
Call: European Research Council Synergy Grant, 2025-2030
Role: Research Scientist
WHIRLS takes place in an area called the Cape Basin, placed within the Agulhas Current System. This region has the strongest and most energetic currents in the world’s ocean and play a key role in the global ocean circulation, and so strongly influences global climate. In particular, these currents ‘leak’ heat and salt from the Indian to the Atlantic Ocean, balancing the overturning circulation of the whole Atlantic and influencing the weather and climate we experience. I will work with Sebastiaan Swart and his research team together with biogeochemists, oceanographers, and climate modellers from France, Germany, and South Africa.
Completed Projects
Submesoscale Processes in a Changing Environment (SPICE)
PI: Marcel du Plessis
Call: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship, 2021-2023
Funding: 2.3m SEK
Submesoscale Processes in a Changing Environment (SPICE) aims to quantify the variability of heat and carbon air-sea fluxes in the Southern Ocean and better understand how ocean submesoscale processes modulate heat and carbon exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean interior. In this project, I deployed a series of autonomous ocean vehicles called Seagliders and Sailbuoys alongside ship-based air-sea flux measurements to reveal how the ocean and atmosphere exchange heat and carbon at scales from hours to days.
Southern Ocean Carbon and Heat Impact on Climate (SO-CHIC)
PI: J.B. Salleé
WP Lead: Sebastiaan Swart (University of Gothenburg)
Role: Postdoc
Call: European Commission Horizon 2020, 2019-2025
Southern Ocean Carbon and Heat Impact on Climate (SO-CHIC) contributes to reducing uncertainties in climate change predictions, 16 institutions decided to pool ability in a common initiative and send in August 2018 a proposal to the call LC-CLA-08-2018 “Addressing knowledge gaps in climate science, in support of IPCC reports” as part of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Our role in SO-CHIC is to investigate the impact of the physical processes which control the variability of heat and carbon uptake in the Southern Ocean. To do this, we quantify their fluxes at the air-sea-ice interface and estimate the synoptic-to-interannual variability of heat and carbon storage in the Southern Ocean.