| Department Lead |
|
 |
|
Chris Chickadel
Senior Principal Oceanographer Affiliate Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering |
|
|
|
|
|
| Research Areas |
|
|
Research Tools |
|
- Air-Sea Exchange—gas and heat, biogeochemical cycling, rainfall
- Coastal—rivers, tidal flats, nearshore
- Ocean/Atmosphere—climate change, ocean circulation, atmospheric rolls, hurricanes
- Sensors—microwave, infrared, laser, hydrophone, dissolved gas
- Waves—wave breaking, internal waves
|
|
Our remote sensing tools span a wide range of scales — from satellite remote sensing, to field experiments using surface and airborne platforms, and to laboratory experiments in wave tanks. Remote sensing instruments used include electro-optical sensors (microwave, infrared, and laser) and acoustic sensors (sonars and hydrophones).
|
| Energy Harvested from a River in Alaska |
|
|
Mapping Underwater Turbulence with Sound |
|
|
Riding Waves to Generate Electricity |
|
A recently published paper details the flow conditions around a full-scale hydrokinetic river turbine.
|
|
|
|
|
| Projects |
All |
|
Media Coverage |
All |
|
Publications |
All |
 |
|
Around the Americas — One Island One Ocean
Andy Jessup, Harry Stern, Amanda Labrado, Jim Thomson
5 May 2025
|
|
|
|
|
Arctic PISCES
Jim Thomson, Jason Gobat, Craig Lee, Bonnie Light, Axel Schweiger
14 April 2025
|
|
|
|
|
First Look at PACE Ocean Color Observations
Ali Chase
26 April 2024
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Seawater synergy
DEIXIS Magazine
Wudan Yan
1 November 2025
|
|
|
|
|
3 reasons why the Pacific Ocean tsunami fizzled before reaching WA
The Seattle Times
Conrad Swanson
30 July 2025
|
|
|
|
|
How to see bioluminescence in Seattle's waterways
Seattle Met
Taylor McKenzie Gerlach
12 June 2025
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mackenzie River freshwater controls early sea ice formation in the eastern Beaufort Sea
Zahn, M.J., S. Fournier, I.G. Fenty, M. Steele, M. Wood, and P. Gaube
16 February 2026
|
|
|
|
|
Classification of sea-ice concentration from ship-board S-band radar images using open-source machine learning tools
Westbrook, E., P. Gaube, E. Culhane, F. Bingham, A. Pacini, C. Schmidgall, J. Schanze, and K. Drushka
9 February 2026
|
|
|
|
|
Surfing transport of buoyant objects observed in the nearshore
Ranville, EJ, J. Thomson, M. Moulton, M. Derakhti
21 January 2026
|
|
|
|
