Wilbert Weijer

I grew up in the Netherlands, a small country in Europe bordering the North Sea. Traditionally the Dutch have a strong relation with the sea. On the one hand they are constantly struggling to keep the water out, as large parts of the country lie below sea level. The Dutch reclaimed large areas from the water (polders) by first building dikes around an area, and then pumping it dry using wind mills. A lot of Dutch actually live on the bottom of the sea! This makes the nation very vulnerable to sea level rise. On the other hand, the Dutch became masters of the sea, as they developed into a successful sea-faring nation. The maritime tradition of the Netherlands strongly appealed to me when I grew up. I couldn't stop dreaming of the elegant sailing ships that once sailed the oceans, visiting exotic places on far-away continents or islands. I figured that by studying the ocean, if nothing else I could make these travels in my mind...

I started studying Physical Oceanography in 1989 at Utrecht University. Coursework included an oceanographic expedition to the Bay of Biscay. Here we learned several techniques to observe internal waves in the ocean. The expedition was a great learning experience, as it gave me a first close-up look of what the ocean looks like underneath the surface. Still, I became more and more interested in theoretical aspects of the ocean circulation. Based on simple principles like conservation of mass and energy, mathematical equations can be developed that allow oceanographers to study the ocean from their office—without getting cold, wet, or sea sick. Even better, these models can be solved by computers. So you won't get tired, either (if only that were true...!).

After I received my degrees in theoretical Physical Oceanography, I worked in Utrecht for a few more years as postdoctoral researcher. After that, I spent several years as researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. Scripps is one of the oldest oceanographic institutions in the United States, as it was established in 1903. It is situated on bluffs overlooking the Pacific. The ocean had finally brought me to an exotic place after all! I studied the circulation in the Southern Ocean, which is the only ocean that encircles the entire globe. Unhindered by continents, it behaves differently from the other oceans. It is here that I learned to appreciate what observations are telling us about the seas. I started working with so-called remote-sensing data: several satellites are equipped with instruments that measure, for instance, the height of the sea surface, or its temperature. From this information, you can infer how the ocean flows.

After a few years I found an opportunity to work in the climate modeling group of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Here in Los Alamos we are working on ocean models that can be coupled to models of the atmosphere and sea-ice. These coupled climate models are used to study the current climate system, and to predict how it may change when more and more carbon-dioxide is released into the atmosphere. So that is what I am doing here as oceanographer in the high-desert of New Mexico: developing ocean models, and using them to learn what drives the ocean and how it influences climate.