The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded a Vidi grant to Daan Crommelin of Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI). The grant allows researchers to develop their own lines of research and build up their own research groups over a five-year period. The Vidi is one of three types of grants under the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme of NWO.
Daan Crommelin receives his Vidi grant for his research on the modeling of ocean currents. These currents play a crucial role in the global climate system by transporting heat. At present, climate models can only simulate large-scale ocean currents, and only include smaller eddies in a very simplified way. These eddies are however crucial in, for instance, the mixing of cold and warm water, the transport of plankton and the salinity of the ocean water. This makes for example the global climate effect of melting polar ice difficult to model.
Crommelin will use random processes to simulate the unpredictable effect of eddies on large ocean currents. In the next few years he will develop mathematical techniques that allow for the use of microscale effects in a macroscale model. Crommelin previously used similar techniques to integrate the effect of clouds in climate models. Refining climate models ultimately leads to a better understanding of the way in which the global climate will develop.
The Vidi grant is targeted at excellent researchers who have completed their doctorates and already spent some years conducting successful post-doctoral research, thereby demonstrating the ability to generate new ideas and bring them independently to fruition. The researchers are among the best ten to twenty percent in their field. They will be given the opportunity to develop their own innovative lines of research during a period of five years.
Image: NASA
