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

这是一个由国家科学基金会地球科学理事会（NSF/GEO）和联合王国国家环境研究理事会（UKRI/NERC）通过NSF/GEO-NERC牵头机构协议共同资助的项目。该协议允许美国/英国提交一份联合提案，并由研究者拥有最大预算比例的机构进行同行评审。一旦成功地共同确定了一项奖励，每个机构就为预算的一部分和与其自己的调查人员和工作组成部分有关的调查人员提供资金。大西洋东南部的开普盆地是一个全球性的涡流动能热点，由亚热带印度洋的沃茨通过阿古拉斯洋流泄漏而提供。一部分温暖而含盐的阿古拉斯沃茨被相互作用的环和漩涡剧烈搅拌并混合到较冷较新鲜的大西洋中。该项目将探讨这样一种假设，即泄漏到大西洋的印度洋沃茨中有很大一部分是中尺度（数十至数百公里）流场变形产生的次中尺度（不到约1公里）特征。该项目将首次观测和描述由Cape Cauldron内的中尺度再循环产生的次中尺度特征。观测结果将被用来估计与理论涡扩散率和涡通量框架的阿古拉斯泄漏通量。这些结果将与新的和现有的卫星高度计观测结果相联系，以推断Agulhas泄漏的变化。外联和教育活动包括在船上制作两部短片，学生和实习生参观该船，在迈阿密高中亲身体验建造海洋漂流者，以及创作一篇科普文章和一篇教育性文章，这一项目将需要收集开普盆地内的新观测资料，以测量相关的次中尺度特征估计扩散系数这些测量将被用来量化涡热和盐通量。将使用欧拉和拉格朗日仪器进行观测，包括系泊、波浪形CTD系统、滑翔机、漂移器、剖面浮标和微观结构湍流剖面仪，捕捉从小时到季节和从1到100公里的时间和空间尺度。这些观测结果将与其他数据集进行合成和分析，包括来自开普敦盆地SWOT交叉的测量结果和海洋模型的输出。观测结果还将用于评估新的NASA SWOT（地表水和海洋地形）卫星使命在研究区域的一个样本交叉点。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得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的支持。

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.