Dr. Thomson studies waves and turbulence at the ocean surface, including interactions with sea ice at the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Lab. He will explore the torrent waters of the Cape Horn region and Drake Passage called the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
The fast water swirls in a series of fronts that delineate the warmer waters near Chile with the cold waters by the Antarctic Peninsula. These fronts cause changes in the winds and waves that arrive from the nearly infinite fetch of the mighty Southern Ocean.
