J. Thomas Farrar

photo credit: San Nyugen

Dr. J. Thomas Farrar

Senior Scientist
Physical Oceanography Department

Google Scholar Profile

ResearcherID Profile

GitHub

Contact Information:
Work: 508-289-2691
jfarrar@whoi.edu
Clark 212A

Mailing Address:
266 Woods Hole Road, MS #29
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Woods Hole, MA 02543

Research Interests

Atmosphere-ocean exchange of heat and freshwater; dynamics and thermodynamics of the upper ocean; tropical dynamics and equatorial waves; oceanic internal waves and eddies; satellite oceanography; ocean observing and instrumentation.

Selected Publications

Farrar, J. T., and R. A. Weller (2006). Intraseasonal variability near 10° N in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, J. Geophys. Res., 111, C05015, doi:10.1029/2005JC002989.
Plueddemann, A.J. and Farrar, J.T. (2006). Observations and models of the energy flux from the wind to mixed layer inertial currents. Deep Sea Research II, 53, 5-30, doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2005.10.017.
Edson, J.B. and coauthors (2007). The Coupled Boundary Layers and Air-Sea Transfer Experiment in Low Winds (CBLAST-LOW). Bull. Am. Meteor. Soc., 88(3), 341-356.
Farrar, J.T., Zappa, C.J., Weller, R.A., and Jessup, A.T. (2007). Sea surface temperature signatures of oceanic internal waves in low winds. J. Geophys. Res., 112, C06014, doi: 10.1029/2006JC003947.
Farrar, J.T. (2008). Observations of the dispersion characteristics and meridional sea-level structure of equatorial waves in the Pacific Ocean. J. Phys. Oceanogr. 38, 1669-1689.
Jiang, H., Farrar, J.T., Beardsley, R., Chen, R. and Chen, C. (2009). Zonal surface wind jets across the Red Sea due to mountain gap forcing along both sides of the Red Sea. Geophys. Res. Lett. Vol. 36, L19605, doi:10.1029/2009GL040008.
Wells, A.J., Cenedese, C., Farrar, J.T. and Zappa, C.J. (2009). Variations in ocean surface temperature due to near-surface flow: Straining the cool skin layer. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 39, 2685-2710.
Farrar, J.T. (2011). Barotropic Rossby waves radiating from tropical instability waves in the Pacific Ocean. J. Phys. Oceanogr. , 41 1160-1181.

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Davis, K.A., Lentz, S.J., Pineda, J., Farrar, J.T., Starczak, V.R., and Churchill, J.H. (2011). Observations of the thermal environment on Red Sea platform reefs: A heat budget analysis. Coral Reefs, 30, 25-36, DOI:10.1007/s00338-011-0740-8.
Berloff, P., Karabasov, S., Farrar, J.T., and Kamenkovich, I. (2011). On Latency of Multiple Zonal Jets in the Oceans. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 686, 534-567, doi:10.1017/jfm.2011.345.
Ganju, N.K., Lentz, S.J., Kirincich, A.R. and Farrar, J.T. (2011) Complex mean circulation over the inner-shelf south of Martha's Vineyard revealed by observations and a high-resolution model. J. Geophys. Res., 116, C10036, doi:10.1029/2011JC007035.
Farrar, J.T. and Durland, T.S. (2012) Wavenumber-frequency spectra of inertia-gravity and mixed Rossby-gravity waves in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 42, 1859–1881.
Durland, T.S. and Farrar, J.T. (2012) The wavenumber-frequency content of resonantly excited equatorial waves. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 42, 1834–1858.
Cronin, M.F., Bond, N.A., Farrar, J.T., Ichikawa, H., Jayne, S.R., Kawai, Y., Kona, M., Qiu, B., Rainville, L., and Tomita, H. (2013) Formation and erosion of the seasonal thermocline in the Kuroshio Extension Recirculation Gyre. Deep Sea Research II, 85, 62-74.
Kirincich, A.R., Lentz, S.J., Farrar, J.T., and Ganju, N.K. (2013) The spatial structure of tidal and mean circulation over the inner shelf south of Martha's Vineyard, MA. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 43, 1940-1958.
Ralston, D.K., Jiang, H., and Farrar, J.T. (2013) Waves in the Red Sea: response to monsoonal and mountain gap winds. Continental Shelf Res., 65, 1-13, doi:10.1016/j.csr.2013.05.017.
Holte, J., Straneo, F., Moffat, C., Weller, R. and Farrar, J.T. (2013) Structure, properties, and heat content of eddies in the southeast Pacific Ocean. J. Geophys. Res., 118, doi:10.1002/jgrc.20175
Pineda, J. Starczak, V., Tarrant, A., Blythe, J., Davis, K., Farrar, T., Berumen, M. and da Silva, J. (2013) Two spatial scales in a bleaching event: corals from the mildest and the most extreme thermal environments escape mortality. Limnology and Oceanography, 58, 1531-1545.
Prytherch, J., Farrar, J.T. and Weller, R.A. (2013) Moored surface buoy observations of the diurnal warm layer. J. Geophys. Res., 118, doi:10.1002/jgrc.20360.
Churchill, J. H., Lentz, S.J., Farrar, J.T., and Abualnaja, Y. (2014) Properties of Red Sea Coastal Currents. Continental Shelf Research, 68, 51-61.
Mechoso, C.R., Wood, R., Weller, R., Bretherton, C.S., Clarke, A.D., Coe, H., Fairall, C., Farrar, J.T., Feingold, G., Garreaud, R., Grados, C., McWilliams, J., de Szoeke, S.P., Yuter, S.E., Zuidema, P. (2014) Ocean-Cloud-Atmosphere-Land Interactions in the Southeastern Pacific: The VOCALS Program. Bull. Am. Met. Soc. 95, 357–375. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00246.1
Holte, J., Straneo, F., Farrar, J.T. and Weller, R.A. (2014) Combining mooring and Argo data to estimate a heat budget for the southeast Pacific. J. Geophys. Res. 119, 8162–8176, doi: 10.1002/2014JC010256.
Bower, A.S., and Farrar, J.T. (2015) Air-Sea Interaction and Horizontal Circulation in the Red Sea. In N. Rasul and I.C.F. Stewart (Eds.), The Red Sea: the formation, morphology, oceanography and environment of a young ocean basin. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg. ISBN 978-3-662-45201-1.
Farrar, J.T., Rainville, L., Plueddemann, A., Kessler, W.S., Lee, C., Hodges, B.A., Schmitt, R., Edson, J.B., Riser, S.C., Eriksen, C.C., Fratantoni, D. (2015) Salinity and temperature balances at the SPURS central mooring during fall and winter. Oceanography 28(1):56–65, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2015.06.
Majumder, S., Tandon, A., Rudnick, D., and Farrar, J.T. (2015) Near-inertial kinetic energy budget of the mixed layer and shear evolution in the transition layer in the Arabian Sea during the monsoons. J. Geophys. Res. 120, 64926507, doi:10.1002/2014JC010198.
Lentz, S. J., Churchill, J.H., Davis, K.A., Farrar, J.T., J. Pineda, and Starczak, V. (2016), The characteristics and dynamics of wave-driven flow across a platform coral reef in the Red Sea, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 121, doi:10.1002/2015JC011141.
Lentz, S.J., Churchill, J.H., Davis, K.A., Farrar, J.T. 2016. Surface gravity wave transformation across a platform coral reef in the Red Sea. J. Geophys. Res. Oceans. 121, 693705, doi:10.1002/2015JC011142.
Zuidema, P., P. Chang, B. Medeiros, B. Kirtman, R. Mechoso, E. Schneider, T. Toniazzo, I. Richter, R.J. Small, K. Bellomo, P. Brandt, S. de Szoeke, J.T. Farrar, E. Jung, S. Kato, M. Li, C. Patricola, Z. Wang R. Wood, Z. Xu. 2016. Challenges and Prospects for Reducing Coupled Climate Model SST Biases in the eastern tropical Atlantic and Pacific Oceans: The US CLIVAR Eastern Tropical Oceans Synthesis Working Group. Bull. Am. Met. Soc., 97(12), 2305-2328, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMSD-15-00274.1.
Wijesekera, H.W. and 45 co-authors. 2016. ASIRI: An Ocean-Atmosphere Initiative for Bay of Bengal. Bull. Am. Met. Soc., 97(10), 1859-1884, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00197.1.
Weller, R.A., J.T. Farrar, J. Buckley, S. Mathew, R. Venkatesan, J. Sree Lekha, D. Chaudhuri, N. Suresh Kumar, and B. Praveen Kumar. 2016. Air-sea interaction in the Bay of Bengal. Oceanography, 29(2):2837, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2016.36.
Thangaprakash, V.P., M.S. Girishkumar, K. Suprit, N. Suresh Kumar, D. Chaudhuri, K. Dinesh, A. Kumar, S. Shivaprasad, M. Ravichandran, J.T. Farrar, R. Sundar, and R.A. Weller. 2016. What controls seasonal evolution of sea surface temperature in the Bay of Bengal? Mixed layer heat budget analysis using moored buoy observations along 90E. Oceanography 29(2):202213, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2016.52.
Shroyer, E.L., D.L. Rudnick, J.T. Farrar, B. Lim, S.K. Venayagamoorthy, L.C. St. Laurent, A. Garanaik, and J.N. Moum. 2016. Modification of upper-ocean temperature structure by subsurface mixing in the presence of strong salinity stratification. Oceanography 29(2):6271, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2016.39.
Wentz, F.J., Ricciardulli, L., Rodriguez, E., Stiles, B., Bourassa, M., David Long, D., Hoffman, R., Stoffelen, A., Verhoef, A., ONeill, L., Farrar, T., Vandemark, D., Fore, A., Veleva, S.H., Turk, J., Gaston, R., Tyler, D. 2017. Evaluating and Extending the Ocean Wind Climate Data Record. Manuscript submitted to IEEE J. Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing. vol.PP, no.99, pp.1-21. doi: 10.1109/JSTARS.2016.2643641
T. Lee, J.T. Farrar, S. Arnault, D. Meyssignac, W. Han, and T. Durland. Monitoring and interpreting the tropical oceans by satellite altimetry. In D. Stammer and A. Cazenave, editors, Satellite Altimetry Over Ocean and Land Surfaces. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, 2018.
R. Morrow, L.-L. Fu, J.T. Farrar, H. Seo, and P.-Y. Le Traon. Ocean eddies and mesoscale variability. In D. Stammer and A. Cazenave, editors, Satellite Altimetry Over Ocean and Land Surfaces. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, 2018.
R. J. Greatbatch, M. Claus, P. Brandt, J.-D. Matthießen, F. P. Tuchen, F. Ascani, M. Dengler, J. Toole, C. Roth, and J.T. Farrar. 2018. Evidence for the maintenance of slowly varying equatorial currents by intraseasonal variability. Geophysical Research Letters, 45.
V.V. Menezes, J.T. Farrar, and A.S. Bower. 2018. Westward mountain-gap wind jets of the northern Red Sea as seen by QuikSCAT. Remote Sensing of Environment, 209:677–699.
S. Ramachandran, A. Tandon, J. Mackinnon, A.J. Lucas, R. Pinkel, A.F. Waterhouse, J. Nash, E. Shroyer, A. Mahadevan, R.A. Weller, and J.T. Farrar. 2018. Submesoscale processes at shallow salinity fronts in the Bay of Bengal: Observations during the winter monsoon. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 48:479–509.
J. Wang, L. Fu, B. Qiu, D. Menemenlis, J.T. Farrar, Y. Chao, A.F. Thompson, and M.M. Flexas. An observing system simulation experiment for the calibration and validation of the surface water ocean topography sea surface height measurement using in situ platforms. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 35:281–297, 2018.
B. K. Arbic and coauthors. A primer on global internal tide and internal gravity wave continuum modeling in HYCOM and mitGCM. In E. Chassignet, A. Pascual, J. Tintore,and J. Verron, editors, New Frontiers in Operational Oceanography, pages 307–391. GODAE OceanView, 2018.
C. J. Prend, H. Seo, R. A. Weller, and J.T. Farrar. Impact of freshwater plumes on intraseasonal upper ocean variability in the Bay of Bengal. Deep-Sea Research II, 2019.
R. A. Weller, J.T. Farrar, H. Seo, C. Prend, D. Sengupta, J. Sree Lekha, M. Ravichandran, and R. Venkatesen. Moored observations of the surface meteorology and air-sea fluxes in the northern Bay of Bengal in 2015. Journal of Climate, 32(2):549–573, 2019.
D. B. Chelton, M. G. Schlax, R. M. Samelson, J.T. Farrar, M. J. Molemaker, J. C. McWilliams, and J. Gula. Prospects for future satellite estimation of small-scale variability of ocean surface velocity and vorticity. Progress in Oceanography, 2019.
V.V. Menezes, J.T. Farrar, and A.S. Bower. Evaporative Implications of Dry-Air Outbreaks over the Northern Red Sea. J. Geophys. Res., 2019.
A. Hasson, J.T. Farrar, J. Boutin, F. Bingham, and T. Lee. Intraseasonal variability of surface salinity in the eastern tropical Pacific associated with mesoscale eddies. J. Geophys. Res., 124. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JC014175. 2019.
S.P. Bryan, K.A. Hughen, K.B. Karnauskas, and J.T. Farrar. Two hundred fifty years of reconstructed South Asian summer monsoon intensity and decadal-scale variability. Geophysical Research Letters, 46(7):3927–3935, 2019.
R. Thakur, E. Shroyer, R. Govindarajan, J.T. Farrar, R.A. Weller, and J. Moum. Seasonality and buoyancy suppression of turbulence in the Bay of Bengal. Geophys. Res. Lett., 46. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL081577. 2019.
E.L. Shroyer, A.L. Gordon, G. Spiro Jaeger, M. Freilich, A.F. Waterhouse, J.T. Farrar, V.V.S.S. Sarma, R. Venkatesan, R.A. Weller, J.N. Moum, and A. Mahadevan. Upper layer thermohaline structure of the Bay of Bengal during the 2013 northeast monsoon. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography, 2019.
E. Rodriguez, M. A. Bourassa, D. B. Chelton, J.T. Farrar, D. Long, D. Perkovic-Martin, and R. M. Samelson. The Winds and Currents Mission concept. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6:438, 2019.
R. Morrow, L. Fu, F. Ardhuin, M. Benkiran, B. Chapron, E. Cosme, F. D’Ovidio, J.T. Farrar, S.T. Gille, G. Lapeyre, P.Y. Le Traon, A. Pascual, A. Ponte, B. Qiu, N. Rascle, C. Ubelmann, J. Wang, and E. Zaron. Global observations of fine-scale ocean surface topography with the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6:232, 2019.
M.F. Cronin, C.L. Gentemann, J.B. Edson, I. Ueki, M. Bourassa, S. Brown, C.A. Clayson, C. Fairall, J.T. Farrar, S.T. Gille, S. Gulev, S. Josey, S. Kato, M. Katsumata, E.C. Kent, M. Krug, P.J. Minnett, R. Parfitt, R.T. Pinker, P.W. Stackhouse, S. Swart, H. Tomita, D. Vandemark, R.A. Weller, K. Yoneyama, L. Yu, and D. Zhang. Air-sea fluxes with a focus on heat and momentum. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6:430.
A.B. Villas Boas, F. Ardhuin, A. Ayet, M. Bourassa, B. Chapron, P. Brandt, B.D. Cornuelle, J.T. Farrar, M.R. Fewings, B. Fox-Kemper, S.T. Gille, C. Gommenginger, P. Heimbach, M.C. Hell, Q. Li, M. Mazloff, S.T. Merrifield, A. Mouche, M. Rio, E. Rodriguez, J.D. Shutler, A.C. Subramanian, E.J. Terrill, M. Tsamados, C. Ubelmann, and E. van Sebille. Integrated observations and modeling of winds, currents, and waves: requirements and challenges for the next decade. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6:425, 2019.
J.T. Farrar and A. J. Plueddemann. On the factors driving upper-ocean salinity variability at the western edge of the Eastern Pacific Fresh Pool. Oceanography, 32(2):30–39, 2019.
Rainville, L.R. Centurioni, W.E. Asher, C.A. Clayson, K. Drushka, J.B. Edson, B.A. Hodges,V. Hormann, J.T. Farrar, J.J. Schanze, A.Y. Shcherbina, and E.J. Thompson. Novel and flexible approach to access the open ocean: Uses of the Research Vessel Lady Amber during SPURS-2. Oceanography, 32(2):116–121, 2019.
D. Zhang, M.F. Cronin, C. Meinig, J.T. Farrar, R. Jenkins, D. Peacock, J. Keene, and A. Sutton. Comparing air-sea flux measurements from a new unmanned surface vehicle and proven platforms during the SPURS-2 field campaign. Oceanography, 32(2):122–133, June 2019.
L. Kantha, R. A. Weller, J.T. Farrar, H. Rahaman, and V. Jampana. A note on modeling mixing in the upper layers of the Bay of Bengal: Importance of water type, water column structure and precipitation. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography, 2019.
K. Adams, J. MacKinnon, A.J. Lucas, J. Nash, E. Shroyer, and J.T. Farrar. Multi-platform observations of small-scale lateral mixed layer variability in the northern Bay of Bengal. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography, page 104629, 2019.
Morrow, R., L.-L. Fu, F. D’Ovidio, and J. T. Farrar. Scientists invited to collaborate in satellite mission’s debut, Eos, 100, 2019.
M.M. Flexas, A.F. Thompson, H.S. Torres, P. Klein, J.T. Farrar, D. Menemenlis, and H. Zhang. Global estimates of the energy transfer from the wind to the ocean, with emphasis on near-inertial oscillations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 124, 2019.
S.R. Davis, J.T. Farrar, R.A. Weller, H. Jiang, and L. Pratt. The land-sea breeze of the Red Sea: Observations, simulations, and relationships to regional moisture transport. J. Geophys. Res. (Atmospheres), 124, 2019.
T. S. Durland and J.T. Farrar. Another note on Rossby wave energy flux. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 2020.
M. Schlundt, J.T. Farrar, S.P. Bigorre, A.J. Plueddemann, and R.A. Weller. Accuracy of wind observations from open-ocean buoys: Correction for flow distortion. J. Atmos. Ocean. Tech., 2020.
M. Dever, M. Freilich, J.T. Farrar, B. Hodges, T. Lanagan, and A. Mahadevan. EcoCTD for profiling oceanic physical-biological properties from an underway ship. J. Atmos. Ocean. Tech., 2020.
C. Gentemann, C.A. Clayson, S. Brown, T. Lee, R. Parfitt, J.T. Farrar, M. Bourassa, P.J. Minnett, H. Seo, S. Gille, and V. Zlotnicki. Measuring the ocean-atmosphere turbulent exchange of heat and moisture from space. Remote Sensing, 2020.
G. Spiro Jaeger, J. MacKinnon, A.J. Lucas, E. Shroyer, J. Nash, A. Tandon, J.T. Farrar, and A. Mahadevan. How spice is stirred in the Bay of Bengal. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 2020.
J. Sree Lekha, Lucas, A. J., Sukhatme, J., Joseph, J. K., Ravichandran, M., Suresh Kumar, N., Farrar, J.T., and Sengupta, D. Quasi‐biweekly mode of the Asian summer monsoon revealed in Bay of Bengal surface observations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 2020.
D.R. Tarry, S. Essink, A. Pascual, S. Ruiz, P.M. Poulain, T. Özgökmen, L.R. Centurioni, J.T. Farrar, A. Shcherbina, A. Mahadevan, and E. D’Asaro. Frontal convergence and vertical velocity measured by drifters in the Alboran Sea. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 2021.
E. Shroyer, A. Tandon, D. Sengupta, H.J.S. Fernando, A.J. Lucas, J.T. Farrar, R. Chattopadhyay, S. de Szoeke, and 42 other co-authors. Bay of Bengal intraseasonal oscillations and the 2018 monsoon onset. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2021.
J.T. Farrar, T.S. Durland, S.R. Jayne, and J.F. Price. Long-distance radiation of Rossby waves from the equatorial current system. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 51(6): 1947-1966. 2021.
S. Zippel, J.T. Farrar, C.J. Zappa, U. Miller, L. St. Laurent, T. Ijichi, R.A. Weller, L. McRaven, and D. Le Bel. Moored turbulence measurements using pulse-coherent Doppler sonar. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 2021.
J. Wang, L. Fu, B. Haines, M. Lankhorst, A.J. Lucas, J.T. Farrar, U. Send, C. Meinig, O. Schofield, R. Ray, M. Archer, D. Aragon, S. Bigorre, Y. Chao, J. Kerfoot, R. Pinkel, D. Sandwell, and S. Stalin. On the development of SWOT in-situ calibration/validation for short-wavelength ocean topography. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 2022.
K. Jossia Joseph, A. Tandon, R. Venkatesan, J.T. Farrar, and R.A. Weller. Longwave radiation corrections for the OMNI Buoy Network. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology.
Zippel, S. F., Farrar, J. T., Zappa, C. J., & Plueddemann, A. J. Parsing the kinetic energy budget of the ocean surface mixed layer. Geophysical Research Letters, 49, e2021GL095920. 2022.
C.X. Light, B.K. Arbic, P.E. Martin, L. Brodeau, J.T. Farrar, S.M. Griffies, B.P. Kirtman, L.C. Laurindo, D. Menemenlis, A. Molod, A.D. Nelson, E. Nyadjro, A.K. O’Rourke, J.F. Shriver, L. Siqueira, R.J. Small, and E. Strobach. Effects of grid spacing on high-frequency precipitation variance in coupled high-resolution global ocean–atmosphere models. Climate Dynamics. 2022.
Polverari, F., Wineteer, A., Rodríguez, E., Perkovic-Martin, D., Siqueira, P., Farrar, J.T., Adam, M., Closa Tarrés, M., and Edson, J.B. A Ka-Band Wind Geophysical Model Function Using Doppler Scatterometer Measurements from the Air-Sea Interaction Tower Experiment. Remote Sensing. 2022, 14, 2067.
S. Katsura, J. Sprintall, J.T. Farrar, D. Zhang, and M.F. Cronin. The barrier layer effect on the heat and freshwater balance from moored observations in the Eastern Pacific Fresh Pool. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 2022.
D. R. Tarry, S. Ruiz, T. M. Johnston, P.-M. Poulain, T. Özgökmen, L. R. Centurioni, M. Berta, G. Esposito, J.T. Farrar, A. Mahadevan, and A. Pascual. Drifter observations reveal intense vertical velocity in a surface ocean front. Geophysical Research Letters, 49:e2022GL098969, 2022.
U.K. Miller, C.J. Zappa, S. Zippel, J.T. Farrar, and R.A. Weller. Scaling of moored surface ocean turbulence measurements in the southeast Pacific stratus cloud region. Journal of Geophysical Research, 128:e2022JC018901, 2023.
L.D. Riihimaki et al. Ocean surface radiation measurement best practices (in press). Frontiers in Marine Science, 2024.
L. Fu, T. Pavelsky, J. Cretaux, R. Morrow, J.T. Farrar, P. Vaze, P. Sengenes, N. Vinogradova-Shiffer, A. Sylvestre-Baron, N. Picot, and G. Dibarboure. The Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission: A breakthrough in radar remote sensing of the ocean and land surface water. Geophysical Research Letters, 51(4):e2023GL107652, 2024.
M. A. Freilich, C. Poirier, M. Dever, E. Alou-Font, J. Allen, A. Cabornero, L. Sudek, C. J. Choi, S. Ruiz, A. Pascual, T.M. S. J.T. Farrar, Johnston, E. D’Asaro, A. E. Worden, and A. Mahadevan. 3D-intrusions transport active surface microbial assemblages to the dark ocean. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2024.
D. Chaudhuri, D. Senguptaa, E. D’Asaro, M. Mathur, S. Ranganathan, and J.T. Farrar. Near-inertial response of a salinity-stratified ocean (accepted). Journal of Physical Oceanography, 2024.
X. Wang, T. Kukulka, J.T. Farrar, A. Plueddemann, and S. Zippel. Langmuir turbulence controls on observed diurnal warm layer depths. Geophysical Research Letters, 50:e2023GL103231, 2023.

Honors and Awards

2024: NASA Group Achievement Award for the Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE), for “outstanding achievements in advancing the understanding of small-scale ocean dynamics and their role in the Earth’s climate system”

2021-present: Science Team co-lead, Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) Satellite Mission

2018: Principal Investigator of the NASA Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE), a $30M NASA Earth Venture Suborbital Mission with 21 co-investigators, remote sensing measurements from three aircraft, and three research cruises that will take place in 2020-2021.

2017: American Meteorological Society Nicholas P. Fofonoff Award in recognition of research achievement in physical oceanography, for “insightful analysis of observations yielding a deeper understanding of tropical and upper ocean dynamics, and for generous collaboration and leadership in major field experiments”

2012: Editors’ Citation for Excellence in Refereeing, Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans

2006: Outstanding Student Paper Award, AGU Ocean Sciences meeting

2000-2001: MIT Presidential Fellowship

2000: Most Outstanding Physics Student, University of Oklahoma

Download CV

Education

Ph.D., 2007: Physical Oceanography, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
S.M., 2003: Physical Oceanography, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.S., 2000: Physics, University of Oklahoma
B.A.,2000: Philosophy, University of Oklahoma

Teaching

MIT-WHOI Graduate Course 12.805, Dynamical Insights from Data (listed as "Data Analysis in Physical Oceanography")

Syllabus
Course notes (Gebbie and Farrar), Tom's spectral analysis notes begin on page 175.

News/Media

NASA mission will study how hidden ocean swirls soak up heat of global warming (December 2022)

NASA’s S-MODE Field Campaign Deploys to the Pacific Ocean (October 2022)

International Satellite to Track Impacts of Small Ocean Currents (May 2022)

NASA launches mission off San Francisco coast to study ocean's relationship to climate change (October 2021)

Instruments in the sea and sky: NASA's S-MODE mission kicks off 1st deployment (October 2021)

NASA’s S-MODE Takes to the Air and Sea to Study Ocean Eddies (May 2021)

NASA Is Grounding Climate Change Missions Due to Coronavirus

NASA TV Show on Earth Expeditions (Farrar interview about S-MODE at 23:00) (January 2020)

NASA embarks on five US expeditions targeting air, land and sea (November 2019)

Webinar on ocean salinity and oceanographic moorings

Miscellaneous

Link to the white paper that motivated the NASA SPURS-2 program.

The name of the NASA S-MODE experiment pays homage to the MODE experiment of the 1970's that made clear that the oceans are full of eddies. Watch the video.

MBL-WHOI Library page on copyright management

A sad and funny comic from xkcd.com :