Magdalena Carranza is a research associate within MBARI’s Science division. She obtained her PhD in physical oceanography from Scripps Institution of Oceanography-UCSD, partially funded by a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF). She comes to MBARI after a postdoctoral experience as an Advanced Study Program (ASP) Fellow at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Research Interests:

My research interests lie in the intersection of the atmosphere, oceans and biosphere. I investigate the role that atmospheric forcing plays in changing upper ocean physics and its impacts on phytoplankton bloom development, as well as impacts of synergistic effects between atmosphere and ocean weather dynamics. In particular, I focus on synoptic-scale atmospheric weather imprints on upper-ocean mixing and phytoplankton blooms in the Southern Ocean, combining observations from satellites, Argo floats, atmospheric reanalysis data, and model output from the Community Earth System Model (CESM). The ultimate goal is to gain mechanistic understanding of bio-physical interactions and implications of high-frequency events (on scales of a few days) for long-term means of biogeochemical fields and Southern Ocean carbon uptake.