By Jonah Grinkewitz
Tal Ezer’s interest in the Gulf Stream started more than 40 years ago when he was a graduate student at Florida State University. He was tasked with digitizing old hand-drawn maps of the stream.
The Gulf Stream, one of the most powerful ocean currents, was first encountered off the Florida coast by Spanish sailors like Ponce de León in the 1500s and later charted by Benjamin Franklin in 1769 to expedite mail deliveries between the Americas and Europe.
Later, as a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, Ezer helped develop a computer model to simulate and forecast the Gulf Stream.
And here at 98 where he is a professor of Ocean & Earth Sciences (OES) at the Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography, he has studied how the Gulf Stream affects coastal sea level rise and increases flooding in Norfolk.
These experiences recently led to Ezer, Ph.D., being invited to author two research papers on the Gulf Stream, one for the and another for .
The first is a review study on the history and environmental impacts of the Gulf Stream. He outlines the exploration history of the Gulf Stream, beginning with early ship observations, such as those made in the 1800s by Capt. Matthew Fontaine Maury who sailed from Norfolk, and continuing to modern satellite measurements and sophisticated computer models.
“When I was invited to write a special review about the Gulf Stream, I jumped on the opportunity to summarize my own long-term interest in this phenomenon and put it in the historical context of many other studies over many years,” Dr. Ezer said.
He shows how links between the Gulf Stream, extreme weather events like hurricanes, environmental change and coastal impacts have important implications, even for Hampton Roads.
“Climate-related slowdown of ocean currents like the Gulf Stream and increased intensity of hurricanes and tropical storms would increase coastal flooding in Norfolk, which is already a significant problem,” Dr. Ezer said.
The second paper is part of a special issue in Frontiers in Marine Science dedicated to the memory of Professor William Dewar who died last year and was a physical oceanographer at Florida State during Dr. Ezer’s time there in the mid-80s.
“Professor Dewar was a colleague of several OES faculty here, and he conducted research projects related to my own research on the Gulf Stream, so I was glad to be invited by the editors of the special issue to contribute a paper to his memory,” Dr. Ezer said.
The paper examines surface currents in the Mid-Atlantic Bight — a coastal region running from Massachusetts to North Carolina. While past studies attributed the current to variations in the wind, this study found that the Gulf Stream also plays an important role in driving ocean currents along the coast, and this may have implications for the impact of future environmental impacts on Hampton Roads.