Josué Martínez Moreno
PHYSICAL OCEANOGRAPHER
& HOBBYIST

### ABOUT ME

“LIVE AS IF YOU WERE TO DIE TOMORROW. LEARN AS IF YOU WERE TO LIVE FOREVER."

―MAHATMA GANDHI

I am Josué Martínez Moreno a proactive Mexican Earth Scientist interested in oceanic climate and environmental issues, particularly where there is a high impact in population.

Currently, my PhD research focuses on the effects of climate change over oceanic processes (eddies and jets) through perturbations of kinetic energy. This research is relevant due to a possible intensification of coastal heatwaves, changes in the distribution of oceanic primary productivity and potential feedbacks to the earth climate.

A few years ago few fortuitous events allowed me to teach science as a volunteer in Mexican rural communities and I loved it! This inspired me to teach as a professor assistant, a demonstrator and also pursuit an academic formation in order to transfer my knowledge through teaching.

I spend my free time on random projects, sometimes some of this projects are about coding in order to solve problems in my quotidian life, other times are more artistic like acrylic painting, handmade earrings and photography. I constantly provide myself with new ways to learn different skills which fulfil my passion for learning. Additionally, I enjoy expending time in nature, diving, climbing and other outside activities.

My skills:

PYTHON

95%

LaTeX

95%

BIG DATA

85%

WEB DEVELOP

55%
RESEARCH
+

Citations

### Past projects

River runoff plays a crucial role in the transport of sediments, nutrients, and pollutants into the coastal oceans. Some of the rivers in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) carrying the largest volumes of anthropogenic pollutants include the Mississippi, Grijalva-Usumacinta and Coatzacoalcos rivers. Using a high-resolution regional model (MITgcm), we investigate the temporal and spatial variability of the passive tracer transport, north and south of the river mouth, along the coast. The Coatzacoalcos river flow forcing is implemented as a boundary condition with a climatology corresponding to the flow upstream of the river mouth. Our results show that after one year of simulation, the area covered by concentrations larger than 0.1% of the passive pollutant extends over 656,000 km$^2$ (45% of the surface area of the GoM), while concentrations larger than 10% extend over 16,000 km$^2$ from the major cities of Veracruz, Veracruz to Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche in approximately 8 months. As studies of the in situ environmental impact in the region are limited, the coastal areas with higher passive tracer concentration could present ecological risks (eutrophication or hypoxia) and indicate a potential regional economic loss.

##### Collaborators:
• Angel Ruiz Angulo
• Karina Ramos-Musalem
• Jorge Zavala-Hidalgo

### Transient Kinetic Energy

I'm current developing a new methodology to decompose transient kinetic energy into oceanic processes. The focus of this project is on transient kinetic energy contained in mesoscale eddies. This methodology uses a new eddy tracking algorithm, where the basic premise is that all eddies can be optimal fitted by a Gaussian feature. Afterwards, through a geostrophical approximation, the kinetic energy contained in the eddies can be calculated. Our method is effective in determining how much energy is contained in mesoscale eddy-like features. Synthetic data was used to assess the sensitivity and energy content by this method. Additionally, the algorithm was implemented to analyze trends of transient kinetic energy in the Southern Ocean using the Satellite SSHa (Aviso+) and state-of-the-art $0.1^{\circ}$ degree simulation (ACCESS-OM2). The presented results show an increasing trend of transient kinetic energy inside eddies and also an increase of the eddy amplitude in the Southern Ocean.
##### Collaborators:
• Andrew Hogg
• Andrew Kiss
• Navid Constantinou
• Adele Morrison
ACADEMIC PROJECTS & INTERESTS

### LAV & LAKE

LAV corresponds to the Lagrangian Advected Vorticity and LAKE is the Lagrangian Advected Kinetic Energy. $$LAV = \int_{t_0}^{t1}\zeta(X_0,Y_0,t)dt$$ $$LAKE = \int_{t_0}^{t1}KE(X_0,Y_0,t)dt$$ These two quantities are used to diagnose the identifie coherent structures as well as the energy contained by them. For more information, please refere to the following reference:

Abernathey, R., & Haller, G. (2018). Transport by Lagrangian Vortices in the Eastern Pacific. Journal of Physical Oceanography. doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0102.1

• Andrew Hogg

#### Flattening of Agulhas Current

Most of the energy is located in just eight regions of the SO. Some of these hotspots also show some of the largest positive trend, while others do not present such increase, which suggests the eddy dynamics or the interaction between processes my differ. Therefore, the next step of interest, will be to understand each region and provide some hypothesis to explain the different regimes of these oceanic regions. Exploratory regional analysis at the Agulhas Current suggest an energy transfer between the eddy processes and the jet processes, which may be one of the reasons why the energy is not increasing consistently in all western boundary currents.
The figure shows the TKE, TEKE and TRKE trend at the Agulhas Current region. Note that the magnitude of TEKE is smaller than TRKE at the beginning of the record, however at the end of the time-series TEKE is larger than TRKE. This change in magnitude could be explained by an energy input from the jet-meander field into the eddy field. This hypothesis is consistent with the Agulhas meander flattening, however further research is necessary.

#### Sustainable ocean observations

Ocean observations play a key role in the understanding of our climate system and the evaluation of the well-being of oceanic ecosystems. With an changing climate and an increased pressure on ocean ecosystems, more observations and higher temporal and spatial resolution has become more important and necessary. Yet, we do not evaluate the impact of our instruments on the environment in this growing observational system.
With a zero-emission target by 2050 from the Paris Agreement, it is necessary to have the right policies in place to make the ocean observing system sustainable. Although, ocean observations might not be a significant contributor to ocean pollution compared to plastics, taking the initiative in the transition to zero-emissions, would be a showcase of the scientific community to policy makers.
##### Collaborators:
• Jan Japp
• Nic Pittman
• Helen Phillips

#### Data visualization

Three dimensional visualization can be extremely useful to create models, supplementing maps, and increase our understanding of three dimensional and four dimensional data. One of the key advantages of data visualization is the posibility of more intuitively interactions with data, which could be further expanded in the near future with augmented reality and virtual reality. This will provide numerous ways to comunicate science, but also allow scientist to further understand numerical models and complex structures.
As data visualization usually is an external part of a scientist worflow, "blendernc" will try to alliviate this issue by allowing users to import netCDF data to a robust and intuitive animation software. To know more about this project, follow the next link: blendernc

HOBBIES

### PHOTOGRAPHY

My photograph pasion focus on flowers, landscapes and culture.

CONTACT

### WHERE I STUDY

I'd be happy to hear from you!

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA
+61 426 104 364
Email: josue.martinezmoreno@anu.edu.au