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AIRS Research Areas
Educational Opportunities Graduate and undergraduate students who wish to study the intersection of atmospheric sciences, oceanography, and engineering at the Applied Physics Laboratory may work with AIRS advisors who have joint apointments in UW academic departments. More >>
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What We Do The Air-Sea Interaction and Remote Sensing (AIRS) Department is a diverse group of scientists, engineers, technical support staff, and students that conducts research focused on the air-sea interface by using a wide variety of remote sensing techniques.Our interests range from the global scale of climate change and ocean circulation to the smallest scales of the physics of air-sea heat and gas exchange. Our remote sensing tools also span a wide range of scales—from satellite remote sensing, to field experiments using surface and airborne platforms, and to laboratory experiments in wave tanks. Remote sensing instruments used include electro-optical sensors (microwave, infrared, and laser) and acoustic sensors (sonars and hydrophones).
Department Chair 
NASA Satellite Aquarius to Measure Ocean Salinity With the launch of the satellite Aquarius, Principal Oceanographer Bill Asher and several other UW researchers will be involved in projects to calibrate data from space with in situ measurements of ocean salinity. More >>
Listening to the Undersea Noise in Puget Sound Doctoral student researcher Chris Bassett is analyzing a long time series of ambient noise data from Puget Sound. Vessel traffic is the most significant noise source, but breaking waves, precipitation, biology and sediment moving on the seabed are other common underwater noise sources. More >>
Wave Breaking in Mixed Seas Waves are generated by wind blowing across the ocean and dissipated by breaking, either as whitecaps or surf. This research aims to understand the breaking process and the resulting turbulence, especially in wave fields that are a mix of wind waves and swell. More >> |
In the News Ocean energy is a vast, unproven resource The Kitsap Sun 9 Nov 2011 Jim Thomson, a University of Washington researcher, is studying the potential energy that can be produced at Admiralty Inlet and the potential environmental effects. When the project started three years ago, almost nothing was known about that area of Puget Sound, he said. IBM sees energy, money in motion of the ocean MSNBC, John Roach 1 Nov 2011 APL-UW's Jim Thomson is helping characterize the noise environment in Admiralty Inlet in Washington's northern Puget Sound for a pilot project with a local utility that will install underwater turbines to capture energy from the tides. Renewable tidal energy's reality check CNN Money 20 Oct 2011 Jim Thomson and his research team have been collecting data for nearly three years at a potential undersea tidal energy site in Admiralty Inlet. The data will inform the best practices for harnessing tidal energy at the site when the turbines are lowered to the bottom and connected to the power grid. Recent Papers Giddings, S.N., D.A. Fong, S.G. Monismith, C.C. Chickadel, K.A. Edwards, W.J. Plant, B. Wang, O.B. Fringer, A.R. Horner-Devine, and A.T. Jessup, "Frontogenesis and frontal progression of a trapping-generated estuarine convergence front and its influence on mixing and stratification," Estuar. Coasts, EOR, doi:10.1007/s12237-011-9453-z, 2011. 4 Nov 2011, Link Bassett, C., J. Thomson, B. Polagye, and K. Rhinefrank, "Underwater noise measurements of a 1/7th scale wave energy converter," In Proceedings, MTS/IEEE OCEANS 2011, Waikoloa, 19-22 September, doi:110.1109/OCEANS.2010.5664380 (MTS/IEEE, 2011). 22 Sep 2011, Link Dushaw, B.D., P.F. Worcester, and M.A. Dzieciuch, "On the predictability of mode-1 internal tides," Deep Sea Res. I, 6, 677-698, doi:10.1016/j.dsr.2011.04.002, 2011. 1 Jun 2011, Link |
