Harry Bryden
Harry Leonard Bryden, FRS is an American physical oceanographer, professor at the University of Southampton, and staff at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. He is best known for his work in ocean circulation and in the role of the ocean in the Earth's climate.
Early life and education
Born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1946, Bryden received his A.B. degree in mathematics from Dartmouth College. For a short period after graduation, he worked as a mathematician on oceanographic topics for offices of the United States Navy in Maryland and Connecticut. Bryden's doctoral training in oceanography was undertaken at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution through the long-standing joint program for students that operates between these institutes. During his time at MIT-WHOI, Bryden completed and published work on a number of topics including water mass properties, Mediterranean outflow and geostrophy. He was supervised initially by Henry Stommel and then principally by Nick Fofonoff, and his thesis title was "Momentum, Mass, Heat, and Vorticity Balances from Oceanic Measurements of Current and Temperature".Career
Upon competing his doctoral thesis, Bryden briefly moved to Oregon State University to work as a post-doctoral researcher, before returning to WHOI in 1977. He was awarded tenure at WHOI in 1983, and remained there until 1992, ultimately reaching the position of Senior Scientist. Bryden then moved to the United Kingdom and the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, a unit funded by the Natural Environment Research Council. He moved with IOS to Southampton when it partnered with the University of Southampton to create the Southampton Oceanography Centre, and has remained with its successor institutes. Though partially retired, Bryden remains active at the University of Southampton in both research and the wider scientific community. Harry Bryden was appointed Regius Professor of Ocean Sciences at the University of Southampton in March 2020.A particular focus of Bryden's research is the large-scale thermohaline circulation of the ocean, in particular its role in transporting heat. A decline in the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation caused by global warming has been hypothesised, and Bryden and colleagues have studied this via the RAPID array that crosses the Atlantic at 26.5°N.