Stephen Riser

About

Stephen Riser is an oceanographer with long-term interests in the interactions of the physical and chemical aspects of the circulation of the large-scale ocean. He focuses on the use of profiling float technology to study ocean circulation at a global level, and his laboratory has built and deployed over 1400 floats in the past decade in support of these studies. With his laboratory, he has also pioneered the use of many of the technologies presently used in modern profiling floats, including the addition of biogeochemical sensors, under-ice technology, and the use of Iridium communications.

Research topics

• Oceanography
• Geology
• Climatology
• Environmental science
• Ecology
• Chemistry
• Atmospheric sciences
• Geography
• Environmental chemistry
• Meteorology

Selected publications

• Monitoring ocean biogeochemistry with autonomous platforms

  Nature Reviews Earth & Environment · 2020 · 252 citations

  DOI

• Subsurface Evolution and Persistence of Marine Heatwaves in the Northeast Pacific

  Geophysical Research Letters · 2020 · 155 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Abstract The reappearance of a northeast Pacific marine heatwave (MHW) sounded alarms in late summer 2019 for a warming event on par with the 2013–2016 MHW known as The Blob. Despite these two events having similar magnitudes in surface warming, differences in seasonality and salinity distinguish their evolutions. We compare and contrast the ocean's role in the evolution and persistence of the 2013–2016 and 2019–2020 MHWs using mapped temperature and salinity data from Argo floats. An unusual ne…

  DOI

• The Southern Ocean carbon and climate observations and modeling (SOCCOM) project: A review

  Progress In Oceanography · 2023 · 56 citations

  The Southern Ocean serves as the primary gateway through which the intermediate, deep, and bottom waters of the ocean interact with the surface ocean (and thus the atmosphere), and it has a profound influence on the oceanic uptake of anthropogenic carbon and heat as well as nutrient resupply from the abyss to the surface. Yet it has been the least observed and understood region of the world ocean. The Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling (SOCCOM) project was implemented in…

  PublisherDOI

• Supercooled Southern Ocean Waters

  Geophysical Research Letters · 2020 · 45 citations

  Abstract In cold polar waters, temperatures sometimes drop below the freezing point, a process referred to as supercooling. However, observational challenges in polar regions limit our understanding of the spatial and temporal extent of this phenomenon. We here provide observational evidence that supercooled waters are much more widespread in the seasonally ice‐covered Southern Ocean than previously reported. In 5.8% of all analyzed hydrographic profiles south of 55°S, we find temperatures below…

  DOI

• Indo‐Pacific Sector Dominates Southern Ocean Carbon Outgassing

  Global Biogeochemical Cycles · 2022 · 41 citations

  Abstract The Southern Ocean modulates the climate system by exchanging heat and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) between the atmosphere and deep ocean. While this region plays an outsized role in the global oceanic anthropogenic carbon uptake, CO 2 is also released to the atmosphere across large swaths of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). Southern Ocean outgassing has long been attributed to remineralized carbon from upwelled deep water, but the precise mechanisms by which this water reaches the su…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Moored Observations of the Exchange between the North Pacific and the Okhotsk Sea through Bussol Strait

  NSF · $221k · 1998–2005

• Profiling Floats with Chemical Sensors for the Southern Ocean

  NSF · $298k · 2013–2015

• Collaborative Research: In situ measurements of oxygen and nitrate with profiling floats deployed at ocean time-series stations

  NSF · $932k · 2008–2012

Frequent coauthors

• Kenneth S. Johnson

  Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

  60 shared

• Lynne D. Talley

  Scripps Institution of Oceanography

  58 shared

• Jorge L. Sarmiento

  23 shared

• Alison R. Gray

  University of Washington

  21 shared

• Matthew R. Mazloff

  University of California, San Diego

  17 shared

• Nancy L. Williams

  17 shared

• J. L. Russell

  16 shared

• Emmanuel Boss

  15 shared

Labs

• OceanographyPI

Similar researchers at University of Washington

• Deborah Kelleyh-60
• Richard Keilh-53
• Julian Sachsh-48