Raised in Hobart, Australia, I first became involved with oceanography and the Southern Ocean in particular in my honours year at the University of Tasmania, Australia in 2004.  My work there with high resolution models led me into my PhD, also at UTas, supervised by Nathan Bindoff (UTas) and Steve Rintoul (CSIRO).   My PhD focussed on using a novel combination of altimetry and insitu hydrography to examine the full time evolving 3D structure of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.   This technique allows the removal of the dynamically less interesting meandering and eddying of the current, which dominates its variability, to examine more climatically critical trends.   During this time I also had an opportunity to participate in two Antarctic research voyages on the Aurora Australis (BROKE-West, 2006) and SIPEX (2007), spending a total of 18 weeks at sea.  These voyages definitely contributed to my fascination with the region and a determination to become an observational oceanographer.

Following my PhD, I took a short postdoc with Steve Rintoul at CSIRO looking at water mass export from the Antarctic continental shelf, followed by taking a Office of the Chief Executive post at CSIRO (Hobart) with Trevor McDougall.  Here I used inverse techniques to examine mixing within a tracer contour/neutral density framework.

In  2012 I was offered at post at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK and gladly took it up.  Moving my family and life from Tasmania where I had grown up and worked all my life was hard, but ultimately worthwhile.  Since being at BAS I have taken part in four voyages in the Southern Ocean, leading three, and assumed leadership of the Open Oceans team within the Polar Ocean group.  My work has expanded to include the examination of coupled climate models, focussing on the Southern Ocean, ocean thermodynamics, mixed layer and subduction processes and shelf export.

I now act as Deputy Science Leader for the Polar Oceans programme and as the PI of the large multi-centre research programme  ORCHESTRA.

Research interests

Southern Ocean dynamics, particularly ACC overturning and property trends.  In particular I make use of property following techniques such as Gravest Empirical Modes to reduce aliasing.  This technique takes advantage of the equivalent barotropic nature of the ocean and allowed me to separate the observed trends over the last few decades into adiabatic (due to water mass movement) and diabatic (actual changes in water mass properties) components.

Coupled Climate model analysis.  Particularly understanding trends in the Southern Ocean.  Coupled climate models do a fairly poor job of representing the Southern Ocean dynamics, particularly the overturning circulation.  By understanding the reasons for this, I hope to improve both our estimation of uncertainty in overall climate variability and also improve the representation of key processes within the Southern Ocean.  In particular I am interested in the potential that machine learning holds for identifying non-linear or unexpected relationships between variables within coupled climate models, and therefore helping us understand how the complex dynamics of these models relates one system to another.

Export of dense shelf water and Antarctic Bottom Water from Antarctic, particularly the Weddell and Scotia Seas.  This is a water mass that allows long term sequestration of atmospheric properties, such as heat and carbon, in the deep ocean interior.  However, it is formed by very regional air-sea-ice processes in the presence of ice shelve, complex bathymetric considerations  and is therefore susceptible to change in response to climate forcing.  Understanding both how these water masses are formed and how they may change in the future, both via observations and modelling is of great interest to me.

Machine learning applications in oceanographic and geophyscial research.  I am a member of the BAS AI-lab and am working with other members of the Polar Oceans team in exploring causal discovery methods in climate models as well as clustering methods for identifying water masses and fronts.

Collaborations

Ric Williams (University of Liverpool) Southern oceAn caRbon inDIces aNd mEtrics (SARDINE)

Jean-Baptiste Sallee (Sorbonne, Paris) Southern Ocean Carbon and Heat Impact on Climate (SO-CHIC)

Ivana Cerovecki (Scripps, California).  Variability of SAMW properties, diagnosed using Argo

Piers Forster (University of Leeds).  Understanding the oceans role in global surface temperature ‘hiatuses’.

Peter Haynes (University of Cambridge).  Causal discovery in coupled climate models

Abrahamsen, P., Meijers, A., et al., (2019). Stabilization of dense Antarctic water supply to the Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation. Nature Climate Chage. 10.1038/s41558-019-0561-2

Southern Ocean physics section of the IPCC Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere. (2019)

Meijers, A., et al, (2019): The Southern Ocean [in “State of the Climate in 2018”]. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc.

Williams R. and Meijers A., (2019), Ocean Subduction [in “Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences, Edition III”]. Eds. Kirk Cochran, Henry Bokuniewicz and Patricia Yager.

Jones, D. C., Holt, H. J., Meijers, A. J., & Shuckburgh, E. F. (2019). Unsupervised clustering of Southern Ocean Argo float temperature profiles. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans

Cerovečki, I., Meijers, A., et al., (2019). The effects of enhanced sea ice export from the Ross Sea on recent cooling and freshening of the Southeast Pacific. Journal of Climate, (2019).

Meijers, A., et al., (2019). The role of ocean dynamics in king penguin range estimation. Nature Climate Change, 9(2), 120.

Hyder, P., …Meijers, A. et al., (2018). Critical Southern Ocean climate model biases traced to atmospheric model cloud errors. Nature communications, 9.

Jones, D. C., …, Meijers, A. et al., (2018). Local and remote influences on the heat content of the Labrador Sea: an adjoint sensitivity study. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 123(4),
2646-2667.

Griffiths, H., Meijers, A., Bracegirdle, T., (2017) More losers than winners in a century of future Southern Ocean seafloor warming. Nature Climate Change

Naveira Garabato, A.C., … Meijers, A. et al., (2017) High-latitude ocean ventilation and its role in Earth’s climate transitions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A.

A. Meijers, et al., (2016) Wind-driven export of Weddell Sea slope water. J. Geophy. Res. Ocns.

Jones, D.C., Meijers, A. et al., (2016) How does Subantarctic Mode Water ventilate the Southern Hemisphere subtropics? J. of Geophysical Research: Oceans

Meredith, M. P., Meijers, A., Naveira Garabato, A.C., et al,. (2015). Circulation, retention, and mixing of waters within the Weddell‐Scotia Confluence, Southern Ocean: The role of stratified
Taylor columns. JGR.

A. Meijers, The Southern Ocean in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5. (2014) Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. (Invited).

Post, A.L., Meijers A., et al. (2014) Book chapter: Environmental Setting. In: De Broyer C. & Koubbi P., (chief editors). Biogeographic Atlas of the Southern Ocean. Scientific Committee on
Antarctic Research; 1st edition

Sallee, J. B., … Meijers, A. ., et al., (2013). Assessment of Southern Ocean mixed layer depths in CMIP5 models: historical bias and forcing response. JGR

Salle, J. B., … Meijers, A., et al., (2013). Assessment of Southern Ocean water mass circulation and characteristics in CMIP5 models: historical bias and forcing response. JGR.

A. Meijers, Shuckburgh, E., Bruneau, N., Sallee, J. B., Bracegirdle, T. J., & Wang, Z. (2012). Representation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current in the CMIP5 climate models and future
changes under warming scenarios. JGR

A. Meijers, N.L. Bindoff, S.R. Rintoul, (2011) ‘Frontal movements and property fluxes; contributions to heat and freshwater trends in the Southern Ocean’, JGR A. Meijers, N.L. Bindoff, S.R. Rintoul, (2011) ‘Estimating the 4-dimensional structure of the southern Ocean using satellite altimetry’, JOAT

A. Meijers, A. Klocker, N.L. Bindoff, G.D. Williams, S.J. Marsland, (2010) ‘The circulation and water masses of the Antarctic shelf and continental slope between 30 and 80E°, (2010) DSRII
A. Meijers, N. L. Bindoff, J. L. Roberts, (2007) ‘On the total, mean and eddy heat and freshwater transport in the Southern Hemisphere of a 1/8° x 1/8° global ocean model’, JPO

Publications from NERC Open Research Archive

1. ANTARCTICA INSYNC

   ANTARCTICA INSYNC brings together researchers from around the world including British Antarctic Survey to study the continent and the Southern Ocean at the same time.

   Read more of: ANTARCTICA INSYNC

   

2. Measuring ocean-ice interactions from space

   The European Space Agency (ESA) Southern Ocean-Ice Shelf Interactions (SO-ICE) project is a collaborative research project bringing together the ESA Polar+ Ice Shelves and 4D Antarctica projects, and the European Commission Southern Ocean Carbon and Heat Impact on Climate (SO-CHIC) project, in order to improve understanding of the processes controlling ice-ocean interactions in Antarctica.

   Read more of: Measuring ocean-ice interactions from space

   

3. Heat and carbon regulation in the Southern Ocean

   SO-CHIC is a European research project investigating how the Southern Ocean regulates global climate through heat and carbon exchanges.

   Read more of: Heat and carbon regulation in the Southern Ocean

   

4. Reducing uncertainty in sea-level predictions

   OCEAN:ICE studies how Antarctic ice and Southern Ocean processes drive sea-level rise and influence global climate, using new data and advanced ice–ocean–climate models.

   Read more of: Reducing uncertainty in sea-level predictions

   

5. Antarctic surface mass and energy exchanges

   SURFEIT unites UK and international scientists to study Antarctic ice and atmosphere interactions, improve sea-level projections, and support climate action.

   Read more of: Antarctic surface mass and energy exchanges

   

6. Biogeochemical processes in polar ecosystems

   BIOPOLE studies how climate change is affecting the release of nutrients from the polar regions, and their redistribution around the world’s oceans.

   Read more of: Biogeochemical processes in polar ecosystems

   

7. Southern Ocean Carbon and Heat Regulation

   Understanding the Ocean Regulation of Climate by Heat, Carbon Sequestration and Transports

   Read more of: Southern Ocean Carbon and Heat Regulation

   

8. A23 repeat section

   Understanding Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) and its affect on global ocean circulation.

   Read more of: A23 repeat section

   

1. World’s largest iceberg grounds near sub-Antarctic Island of South Georgia

   The world’s largest and oldest iceberg A23a has finally come to a standstill as it appears to have run aground near the sub-Antarctic Island of South Georgia. 

   Read more of: World’s largest iceberg grounds near sub-Antarctic Island of South Georgia

   

2. Declining Antarctic sea ice generating more ocean heat loss and storms

   A new study shows that the ongoing decline in Antarctic sea ice is leading to more heat loss from the ocean to the atmosphere and an increase in storm activity. The research, led by the UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC), focuses on the record-low sea ice cover in Antarctica during the winter of 2023.

   Read more of: Declining Antarctic sea ice generating more ocean heat loss and storms

   

3. New animation shows track of giant A23a iceberg

   Scientists at British Antarctic Survey are using satellite images to track the colossal iceberg A23a.

   Read more of: New animation shows track of giant A23a iceberg

   

4. First Antarctic research mission on polar ship

   A team of international researchers set sail on the RRS Sir David Attenborough today (20 November) to answer some of the big questions about how Antarctic ecosystems and sea ice drive global ocean cycles of carbon and nutrients.

   Read more of: First Antarctic research mission on polar ship

   

5. Urgent call for more Southern Ocean research

   Today, hundreds of international scientists are sounding a clarion call for urgent expansion of Southern Ocean research in the emerging climate crisis. 300 scientists from 25 nations have been meeting […]

   Read more of: Urgent call for more Southern Ocean research

   

6. The mystery of the missing Antarctic sea ice

   Winter sea ice in the Antarctic is at a historic low, and scientists are working to understand why an area of ice the size of Greenland is missing. Scientists from […]

   Read more of: The mystery of the missing Antarctic sea ice

   

7. The changing Southern Ocean: Heat and carbon

   A series of studies on the Southern Ocean, which encircles Antarctica, reveal how it is changing. A special issue of the Journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, led by the […]

   Read more of: The changing Southern Ocean: Heat and carbon

   

8. State of the Polar Oceans report published

   Report published July 2018

   Read more of: State of the Polar Oceans report published

   

9. More losers than winners for Southern Ocean marine life

   A new study of the marine invertebrates living in the seas around Antarctica reveals there will be more ‘losers’ than ‘winners’ over the next century as the Antarctic seafloor warms.  […]

   Read more of: More losers than winners for Southern Ocean marine life

   

10. NEWS STORY: Southern Ocean dynamics

    The Southern Ocean: new insights into circulation, carbon and climate A special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A has been published today (Monday 2 June) which […]

    Read more of: NEWS STORY: Southern Ocean dynamics

    

The separation of the trends over the last few decades into adiabatic and diabatic components.  By doing this I showed that while geographic surveys have shown a warming over the Southern Ocean, this is largely caused by the adiabatic movement of watermasses southward.  This trend largely masks the water mass change itself, which is actually towards cooler and fresher on average.  For more details see here.

A Drop in the Southern Ocean:  A great short film showcasing the DIMES experiment, and particularly the final voyage (led by myself) of that multinational experiment.  https://vimeo.com/97260669

Credit to Katy Sheen and Siobhan Moran for putting together such a great piece of work!

• Polar Oceans Deputy Science Leader, Polar Oceans