Collaborative Research: NSFGEO-NERC: QUICCHE: Quantifying Interocean fluxes in the Cape Cauldron Hotspot of Eddy kinetic energy

该项目由美国国家科学基金会地球科学理事会（NSF/GEO）和英国国家环境研究委员会（UKRI/NERC）通过NSF/GEO-NERC牵头机构协议共同资助。该协议允许美国/英国提交一份联合提案，并由其调查员拥有最大比例预算的机构进行同行评审。在成功地共同确定一项奖励后，每个机构为预算的比例和与自己的调查人员有关的调查人员和工作的组成部分提供资金。东南大西洋的开普盆地是涡旋动能的全球热点，由亚热带印度洋通过阿古拉斯洋流泄漏的水提供。一部分温暖而咸的阿古拉斯水通过相互作用的环和漩涡被强烈搅拌并混合到凉爽而新鲜的大西洋中。该项目将解决这样一个假设，即大部分流入大西洋的印度洋水域是在中尺度（数十至数百公里）流场变形产生的亚中尺度（小于约1公里）特征中发现的。该项目将首次观察和描述由大锅角中尺度环流产生的亚中尺度特征。观测结果将用于用理论涡流扩散率和涡流通量框架估计Agulhas泄漏通量。结果将与新的和现有的卫星高度计观测结果相关联，以推断Agulhas渗漏的变异性。外展和教育活动包括在船上制作两部短片，学生和实习生参观船只，在迈阿密高中亲身体验建造海洋漂流器，以及为学校儿童创作一篇科普文章和一个具有教育意义的海洋纸牌游戏。该项目将需要在开普盆地内收集新的观测资料，以测量相关的亚中尺度特征和估计扩散率。这些测量结果将用于量化涡流热通量和盐通量。观测将使用欧拉和拉格朗日仪器，包括系泊、波动CTD系统、滑翔机、漂流器、剖面浮子和微观结构湍流剖面仪，捕捉从小时到季节、从1到100公里的时间和空间尺度。观测结果将与其他数据集进行综合和分析，包括Cape盆地SWOT交叉的测量结果和海洋模型的输出。观测结果还将用于在研究区域的采样点评估新的NASA SWOT（地表水和海洋地形）卫星任务。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This is a project that is jointly funded by the National Science Foundation’s Directorate of Geosciences (NSF/GEO) and the National Environment Research Council (UKRI/NERC) of the United Kingdom (UK) via the NSF/GEO-NERC Lead Agency Agreement. This Agreement allows a single joint US/UK proposal to be submitted and peer-reviewed by the Agency whose investigator has the largest proportion of the budget. Upon successful joint determination of an award, each Agency funds the proportion of the budget and the investigators associated with its own ivestigators and component of the work.The Cape Basin in the southeast Atlantic is a global hotspot of eddy kinetic energy, fed by a leakage of waters from the subtropical Indian Ocean via the Agulhas Current. A proportion of warm and salty Agulhas waters is vigorously stirred and mixed into the cooler and fresher Atlantic by co-interacting rings and eddies. This project will address the hypothesis that a large proportion of the Indian Ocean waters that leak into the Atlantic is to be found in submesoscale (less than approximately 1 km) features generated by deformations of the mesoscale (tens to hundreds of km) flow field. The project will observe and characterize, for the first time, submesoscale features generated by mesoscale recirculations within the Cape Cauldron. The observations will be used to estimate Agulhas leakage fluxes with theoretical eddy diffusivity and eddy flux frameworks. The results will be related to new and existing satellite altimeter observations to infer variability in Agulhas leakage. Outreach and education activities include production of two short films aboard ship, student and intern visits to the ship, hands-on experience building ocean drifters at Miami high schools, and creation of a popular science article and an educational, oceanographic card game for school children.This project will entail the collection of new observations within the Cape Basin of filamentation and eddy interaction to measure the related submesoscale features and estimate diffusivities. These measurements will be used to quantify eddy heat and salt fluxes. Observations will be made using both Eulerian and Lagrangian instrumentation, including moorings, an undulating CTD system, gliders, drifters, profiling floats, and microstructure turbulence profilers, capturing time and space scales from hours to seasons and from 1 to 100 km. The observations will be synthesized and analyzed with other datasets including measurements from the SWOT crossover in the Cape Basin and output from an ocean model. The observations will also be used to evaluate the new NASA SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) satellite mission at a swatch crossover point in the study region.This 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.