Current Research
Russell’s research uses robot floats, satellites, and supercomputers to observe and predict the ocean’s role in the climate and carbon cycle of the past, the present and the future, with the overarching goal of understanding the Southern Ocean and the role of the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds in the global carbon cycle, the global climate, and their response to anthropogenic forcing. She is the lead of the modeling team for the NSF-, NOAA- and NASA-funded Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling project. Russell is PI on the recently-submitted Southern Ocean Storms–Zephyr, a $193M NASA mission proposal to quantify the global carbon budget and she would be the first female PI of a NASA earth science mission.
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Current Projects and Research
One focus of our current efforts is the Southern Ocean which acts as the lungs of the ocean, “inhaling” oxygen and “exhaling” carbon dioxide.