Terra Scientia - Nathalie Goodkin

Research Blogs

Tropical Pacific SST and ITCZ Biases in Climate Models: Double Trouble for Future Rainfall Projections?

Nathalie Goodkin, Dhrubajyoti Samanta, Kristopher B. Karnauskas February 2019 35 Comments

The double intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) bias remains a persistent problem in coupled general circulation model (CGCM) simulations. Due to the strong sea surface temperature (SST)‐convection relationship in the tropics, precipitation biases are sensitive to background SST. Using historical simulations of 24 CGCMs and an...

Interannual Coral Δ14C Records of Surface Water Exchange Across the Luzon Strait

Nathalie Goodkin, Riovie Ramos, Ellen R. M. Druffel, Fernando Siringan January 2019 48 Comments

The Luzon Strait (LS) hosts the largest transport of water between the Western Pacific Ocean (WPO) and the South China Sea (SCS). The transport through the strait, dominated by the westward propagation of the Kuroshio Intrusion, influences the climate and circulation of the SCS. While numerical models have investigated the...

Variability in Coral-Reconstructed Sea Surface Salinity Between the Northern and Southern Lombok Strait Linked to East Asian Winter Monsoon Mean State Reversals

Nathalie Goodkin, Sujata Murty, A. A. Wiguna, A. L. Gordon October 2018 124 Comments

The Indonesian throughflow (ITF) impacts heat and buoyancy transport from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean, influencing air-sea heat exchange and Indo-Pacific climate. Nearly 80% of the total 15 sverdrups (1 Sv = 10⁶ m³/s) of ITF water moves through the Makassar Strait in the western Indonesian seas, with ~20% of total ITF transport...

Coupled Model Biases Breed Spurious Low-Frequency Variability in the Tropical Pacific Ocean

Nathalie Goodkin, Dhrubajyoti Samanta, Kristopher B. Karnauskas, Lei Zhang September 2018 256 Comments

Coupled general circulation model (GCM) biases in the tropical Pacific are substantial, including a westward extended cold sea surface temperature (SST) bias linked to El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Investigation of internal climate variability at centennial...

How Corals Hold Centuries of Ocean Data

July 2018

Before we can make a plan to protect our oceans from climate change, we need to know what they were like before human impact. We haven’t been collecting ocean data for very long, but luckily one ocean marine organism has been keeping records for millennia: corals. In this video, I show how looking at evidence of the past in coral records can help us to protect these organisms, and our oceans, for the future.