Rob Smith

2004 - 2007 BSc Oceanography University of Southampton
2007 - 2010 Scientist, Met Office Hadley Centre
2010 - Present PhD student in Physical Oceanography, University of Otago

Research Interests:

Observational oceanography, water mass formation and interaction, upper ocean physics and dynamics, development of Climate Data Records.

PhD Research

Robs project aims to explain the formation, evolution and significance of small scale (less than 10 km) wave-like features off the east coast of the South Island, New Zealand, in a part of global oceanic frontal system than encircles the Southern Ocean. These features are hypothesised to play a major role in the latitudinal transport of heat, salt and nutrients, through mixing between subtropical and polar water bodies. Whilst earlier studies have been limited to exploring the average position and characteristics of this thermal boundary, the development of new, high resolution satellite Sea Surface Temperature products now makes it possible to capture much finer scale structures at the ocean surface. Combining remote sensing data with in-situ measurements, this project will improve our understanding and estimates of these important sources of variability within the ocean. This will aid development and validation of improved numerical climate models that incorporate dynamic, small scale features.

Papers Published (Blue titles link to PDF's)

Kennedy, J.J., Smith R.O. and Rayner, N.A.: Using AATSR data to assess the quality of in situ sea-surface temperature observations for climate studies. Accepted July 2009 to Remote Sensing of Environment.

Kent, E.C., Kennedy, J.J., Berry, D.I., and Smith, R.O.: Effects of instrumentation changes on ocean surface temperature measured in situ. Accepted January 2010 to Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change.

Smith R.O., Bryden, H.L., and Stansfield, K.: Observations of new western Mediterranean deep water formation using Argo floats (2004-2006). Ocean Science, 4, 133-149, 2008.
Kennedy J.J., Rayner, N.A., Smith, R.O., Saunby, M. and Parker, D.E. (2010). Reassessing biases and other uncertainties in sea-surface temperature observations since 1850 part 1: measurement and sampling errors. in preparation

Kennedy J.J., Rayner, N.A., Smith, R.O., Saunby, M. and Parker, D.E. (2010). Reassessing biases and other uncertainties in sea-surface temperature observations since 1850 part 2: biases and homogenisation. in preparation

Conference Talks, Posters and Abstracts

Smith, R.O., Kennedy, J.J. and Rayner, N.: Assessing the long term stability of drifting buoys. Ocean Sciences, Portland, USA, February 2010. Presentation

Smith, R.O., Kennedy, J.J., Rayner, N.: The new and improved HadSST3: An analysis of sea surface temperature (1850-2009). Royal Meteorological Society annual conference, Reading, July 2009. Poster

Smith, R.O., Bryden, H.L., and Stansfield, K.: Observations of new western Mediterranean deep water formation using Argo floats (2004-2006). CLIMAR-III, Gdynia, Poland, May 2008. Poster