Statement on Research

General Goals



As the junior NSERC/MARTEC/MSC Industrial Research Chair, my main research objective is to collaborate with the senior chair Dr. Greatbatch on the development of high-resolution ocean modelling systems for the eastern Canadian seaboard. These modelling systems include prognostically evolving temperature, salinity and sea-ice.

My other research interests include nonlinear dynamics of coastal currents and retention and advection of chemical and biological materials in the ocean.

Research Areas

1. Physical processes over shelf seas and coastal waters

2. Numerical modeling and two-way interactive nesting

3. Retention and advection of chemical and biological materials in the ocean.


Specific Research Interests


1. Development and application of the semi-prognostic method and related techniques for improving the utility of ocean circulation models

2. Development of a new nesting technique based on the semi-prognostic method

3. Numerical study of seasonal circulation over the eastern Canadian seaboard.

4. Nonlinear dynamics of the Gaspe Current

5. Numerical study of ecological connections among reefs over the Meso- American Barrier Reef System (MBRS) of the northwest Caribbean Sea.

6. Barotropic and baroclinic ocean response to fast moving storms.

7. Development of a high-resolution ocean circulation model for Lunenburg Bay, as part of CMEP.

8. Air-sea flux of chlorofluorocarbons and carbon dioxide in response to climate forcing, as part of SOLAS.

9. Effects of surface heating/cooling, sea-ice and freshwater runoff on the general circulation and temperature/salinity distribution on the eastern Canadian shelf.


List of Research Projects


1. NSERC/MARTEC/MSC Industrial Research Chair Program (Greatbatch and Sheng).

2. Regional scale ecological connections among reefs (Sale, Sheng, Hatcher, Ruddick and two others).

3. Development of a high-resolution ocean circulation model for Lunenburg Bay, as part of CMEP (Cullen, Thompson,Ritchie, Hay, Sheng and others)

4. Air-sea flux of carbon dioxide in response to the climate forcing, as part of SOLAS (Azetso-Scott, Sheng and three others).

5. Sensitivity study on the numerical simulation of passive tracers using an ocean general circulation model (Sheng, Wright and Jones).

Future Research Directions


1. To use numerical models to improve our understanding of the dynamic processes in the coastal and shelf seas.

2. To determine how surface heating/cooling, sea-ice and freshwater runoff affect the general circulation and temperature/salinity distribution on the eastern Canadian shelf.

3. To investigate the effects of physical processes on chemical and biological distributions in estuaries and shelf seas.

4. To develop a coupled atmosphere/ocean/ice modelling system for marine environmental prediction over the eastern Canadian sea-board.


Collaborations


The Department of Oceanography is a multi-disciplinary research department of international stature. It provides genuine opportunities of collaboration for a new faculty number. I have taken a very active approach to collaborate with colleagues in this department and those at other Canadian Universities and international institutions.

• Close collaboration with the senior chair Dr. Richard Greatbatch in the key research areas outlined in the proposal, including the development of new monthly climatology (Geshelin et al., 2000), semi-prognostic method (Sheng et al., 2001), barotropic waves generated by moving storms (Mercer, et al., 2001), and numerical study of seasonal circulation in the northwest Atlantic.
  
  
• Continuous collaboration and coordination with Drs. Keith Thompson and Josko Bobanovic on the development of prototype operational forecast systems.
  
  
• Collaboration with Drs. Dan Wright, Peter Jones and Kumiko Azetsu-Scott at BIO in the numerical study of the passive tracers in the Labrador Sea (Sheng et al., in prep).
  
  
• Collaboration with Drs. Harold Ritchie and Serge Desjardins and with Mr. Doug Mercer of the Meteorological Service of Canada to study the ocean response to wind and pressure forcing produced by atmospheric circulation models (Mercer, Sheng, Greatbatch and Bobanovic, 2001).
  
  
• Collaboration with Dr. Jim Chuang of DalTech to parallelize the CANDIE code.
  
  
• Interaction with Drs. Chris Taggart and Chris Reiss on examining the implications of baroclinic circulation over Western Bank on the Scotian Shelf for larval fish transport and retention (Reiss, et al., 2000).
  
  
• Interaction with Drs. Jeff Runge and Bruno Zakardjian of Institut des Sciences de la Mer de Rimousk on the numerical simulation of life history of the copepod over the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Scotian Shelf (Zakardjian et al., 2001).
  
  
• Collaboration with Dr. Peter Sale of University of Windsor and Drs. Barry Ruddick and Bruce Hatcher of Dalhousie University in submitting a multidisciplinary research proposal to the NSERC CRO program for studying the ecological connection among the coral reefs.
  
  
• Interaction with Professor Huiding Wu at the National Research Center for Marine Environment Forecasts, China, on sea-ice modelling and tidal circulation in the Bohai Sea.
  
  
• Interaction with Professor Changkung Zhang of Hehai University in Nanjing, China, on estuary circulation.