Jodi Brewster is a Senior Research Associate working in Dr. Nick Shay's Upper Ocean Dynamics Laboratory (UOD). She helped develop and maintains the global ocean heat content product for the UOD lab. She assists in preparing for the beginning of hurricane season, in both the Eastern Pacific and Atlantic basin, when members of the UOD deploy expendable atmosphere and ocean probes from P3 Hurricane Hunter aircraft as well as as well as profiling oceanographic floats from C-130 aircraft over the Gulf of Mexico to study the upper ocean before, during, and after intense storms. Her favorite part of being an oceanographer is when she's out on an oceanographic research expedition...Fair Winds and Following Seas.
Brewster received her B.S. in Marine Science with minors in Mathematics and Computer Science at Coastal Carolina University. Subsequently, she moved to CA to earn her M.S. in Marine Science-Physical Oceanography at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. Her thesis investigated the evolution of an iron-enriched patch of water in the Southern Ocean as a part of the Southern Ocean Iron Experiment (SOFEX). While in CA, she studied the oceanography impacts on bioluminescence at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and temperature forecasting in Monterey Bay.
The lab uses a combination of satellite, aircraft and in situ measurement and analysis techniques such as oceanic heat content to understand ocean-atmosphere interactions during atmospheric forcing, such as hurricanes and cold fronts. Satellite Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Surface Height Anomaly are combined with climatologies developed in the UOD Lab are used to create global daily Ocean Heat Content maps. Instruments deployed from aircraft measure the atmosphere and ocean to determine air-sea interactions during hurricane events and environmental disasters, such as Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Profiling floats released during oceanographic expeditions measure the biogeochemical conditions and the ocean currents that impact their distribution. Long-term measurements from weather stations, radar and buoys support the lab's research into monthly, seasonal, yearly, and decadal trends.
