Research Highlights
We aim to feature the latest research results from US scientists whose published paper features work that is sponsored by one or more sponsoring agency programs of US CLIVAR (NASA, NOAA, NSF, DOE, ONR). Check out the collection of research highlights below and sort by topic on the right. Interested in submitting an article for consideration? See our Research Highlight Submission Guidelines page for more information.
Eddebbar et al. (2026) use observations-based and modeling products to show that future changes in tropical Pacific O2 are sensitive to local shifts in equatorial Pacific circulation and productivity driven by coupled ocean-atmosphere interactions, as well as reduced ventilation from higher latitudes due to ocean warming.
In a recent study, Wu and co-authors traced the origins of the eastern equatorial Pacific cold tongue bias in the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) SPEAR coupled climate model (SPEAR_LO; Fig. 1d-f) using a set of mean-state correction experiments.
Leveraging coupled air-sea simulations to recreate wind-driven waves under strong wind conditions, Scapin et al. (2026) demonstrate that the energy dissipated due to ocean wave breaking is determined by the energy stored in the waves, and is not directly dependent on the instantaneous wind speed.
A new study by Marsico et al. (2026) shows how the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO)'s evolution is driven by superposition of a 45-day period "fast" mode and a newly identified 70-day period "slow" mode, rather than indices that treat the MJO as a single wave.
Joshi and Zhang (2025) demonstrate that southward advection of upper extratropical-tropical North Atlantic signals by the North Atlantic subtropical gyre plays a central role in forming the characteristic cold SST horseshoe pattern, rather than wind-evaporation-SST feedback.