The Earth Institute's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) Division of Ocean and Climate Physics Seminar presents "Oceanography of the Philippine Seas: It's Really Interesting," with Arnold Gordon, Physical Oceanographer, Professor of Earth and Environmental Science, and Associate Director of the Department of Ocean and Climate Physics, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University.   Open to the public.

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As my research generally deals with oceanographic issues of global scale, as ocean overturning and interocean exchanges, when an Indonesian program, with its lure of further investigating the flow from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean was moved to the Philippine seas, I first thought well "I haven't been there before", so why not? But as I got to know more about that region, it has increasingly become more fascinating to me. Just look at the geography: stretching from Australia to southeast Asia is a 2800 mile "Mega-Archipelago" separating the western Pacific and eastern tropical Indian Oceans, with its ENSO and Asian monsoon connections, a most unique setting of exotic named seas. The western Pacific 'sees' a porous western boundary, with some paths winding their way to the Indian Ocean. The water-ways SE Asia Seas offer an oceanographic challenge to both observational and model research [clearly a fine scale approach is needed] to investigate the regional circulation as it response to strong monsoonal winds, textured by mountainous islands; to complex ocean bottom morphology; all amidst a multitude of isolated deep basins within a network of interconnecting straits. Here I'll focus of just a few oceanographic features revealed by the PhilEx program: exchange between the seas of the Philippine waters and ventilation of the deep isolated basins of the Sulu and Mindanao Seas [with mention of a few other strange features]. In view of the large-scale importance of the "Mega-Archipelago" to climate phenomena and its frequent mention in paleo-climate studies, one wonders - do we properly understand and model this complex environment?