High Resolution Underway Air-Sea Observations in Drake Passage for Climate Science

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Part 1: On frequent crossings of the Drake Passage on the US Antarctic vessel ARSV Laurence M. Gould, a range of underway measurements are taken. These data represent one of the few repeat year around shipboard measurements in the Southern Ocean. With close to two decades of data now available, the primary science objectives of this proposal are to continue to analyze the Drake Passage time series. Part 2: Some of the analyses are (1) describe and relate the seasonal and long-term ocean energy distribution to wind, buoyancy and topographic forcing and sinks, and (2) describe and relate seasonal and long-term changes in the ACC fronts, water masses and upwelling to biogeochemical and climate variability. High-resolution, near-repeat Expendable Bathythermograph (XBT) and Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) transect sampling in Drake Passage is thus used to study modes of variability in ocean temperature, salinity, currents and backscatter in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) on seasonal to interannual time frames, and on space scales from current cores to eddies. This project is a continuation of the longstanding support for collecting the ADCP and other underway data on USAP vessels, such as the ASRV Laurence M GouldThis award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.