I would like to start by thanking all the mentors I have had throughout my career, including my current advisor Amit Tandon, my previous advisor Ilson Silveira, and who collaborated with my research and have given me letters of recommendation for this program (Simon de Szoeke and Amala Mahadevan). I came from a place with few opportunities and both my parents (Sandra and Vicente) and my academic mentors believed and invested a lot of time to get me to where I am now. Since I started my undergraduate degree in Oceanography at the Federal University of Ceará in northeastern Brazil, I have always greatly admired and wanted to participate in this program, despite finding it practically unattainable for someone with my background. I was in disbelief when I received the approval email and perhaps out of impostor syndrome, it took me a while to understand that the selection committee and the directors believed in my potential.
The program directors, Colm and Stefan, with such different personalities, were always very welcoming and were always very concerned about how I was handling the program.
I would like to thank Keaton Burns very much for being so patient and mentoring me so closely throughout the process of developing this project. I learned a lot from his mentorship and I am very grateful that he trusted and invested in my work. I felt lucky to have been mentored by someone so skillful, pedagogical and patient.
I would also like to thank André Souza for always being so open to my questions about this new world that the GFD introduced me to. As Supercloud computing resources were crucial to the development of this work, I could not leave Chris Hill out of this statement. He was essential in enabling us to run so many complex numerical experiments in such a short time.
I would especially like to thank Peter Schimd and Laure Zanna for being inspiring teachers, making such complex subjects seem simple, and for always being so open to discuss and answer our questions. Laure also mentored me on this project and I loved all the conversations we had about science and career. Pedram Hassanzadeh helped me a lot to understand the language and application of different artificial intelligence algorithms and without him, I would not have been able to understand some of the applications this work may have in the future.
I would also like to thank all the speakers who took the time to present their work to us and then talk to us about various topics. Likewise, I would like to give a special thanks to those who were there all summer. Glenn for being our oracle, Pascale and Carl for asking the best questions, Neil for showing that science can also be fun and Joe for his dynamics insights.
I also dedicate this paper to all the Fellows this year. Sam, Rui, Kasturi, Tilly, Ruth, Claire and Ludovido each showed me their perspective on the world and science. I was very happy to have had such a diverse, collaborative, friendly and non-competitive group. You all made this whole experience shareable.
I would like to thank my friend Nikiforos very much. In between the comings and goings, he was my road companion and helped me keep my head while I was completely overwhelmed with so much daily information.
I would like to thank Julie Hildebrandt and Janet Fields for all their support in the admission and administration. As I would also like to thank the janitor Rich who came by late at night every day to clean the cottage, remind me that I needed to come home and sleep, and have friendly conversations about random subjects.
I also dedicate this work to my great friends who encouraged me and helped me from the beginning to the end: Cesar Rocha, André Schmidt, Filipe Pereira, Igor Uchôa, Bruno Gonçalves, Jeane Rodrigues, Letícia Lima, Christian Buckingham, Elizabeth and the Ells family, and Siddhant Kerhalkar.
Finally I would like to thank my beloved wife Ágata for supporting me so much and giving me so much comfort so that I could feel at home even if I was far away. You are the best companion.