Quantifying Interocean Fluxes across the Cape Cauldron Hotspot of Eddy Kinetic Energy

量化涡动能大锅角热点的洋间通量

• 批准号: NE/X006468/1
• 负责人: Yueng-Djern Lenn
• 金额: $ 30.97万
• 依托单位: Bangor University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FX006468%2F1
• 关键词: Quantifying; Interocean; Fluxes; across; Cape

The Agulhas current carries warm and salty subtropical Indian Ocean water south along the coast of east Africa. Past the Cape of Good Hope, the Agulhas Current overshoots the tip of the African continent and turns back towards the Indian Ocean, throwing lots of eddies into the south Atlantic across the Cape Basin, located southwest of South African coast. These eddies are large rotating vortex rings that interact with each other, sometimes merging, sometimes breaking up into smaller structures. All together this energetic flow field moves northwest across the Cape Basin carrying heat and salt into the fresher south Atlantic. It turns out this influx of heat and salt from the Indian Ocean is really important for the large-scale overturning circulation of our oceans which redistribute heat and salt from basin to basin and across latitudes in a way that helps control our climate. However, measuring the heat and sal flux from the Indian to Atlantic Oceans is not trivial because of the chaotic nature of the flow field. We propose a novel set of measurements that will let us measure the heat and salt fluxes, not just in the really large eddies that can be seen from space (aka Agulhas Rings), but also the smaller eddying features whose contribution to the interocean fluxes is still unaccounted for. These measurements include moorings, ocean turbulence, fine-resolution hydrographic surveys, seagliders and two different types of lagrangian drifters set to measure at the surface and at 2000-m depth. In addition, we will make these measurements at a time that coincides with the science calibration phase of the upcoming SWOT satellite, so as to provide ground-truthed data for that mission.

Agulhas电流沿东非海岸向南带有温暖而咸的亚热带印度洋水。超越了好希望的斗篷，阿古尔哈斯（Agulhas）电流超越了非洲大陆的尖端，转向印度洋，向印度洋扔了很多涡流，向南非海岸西南部的开普盆地的南大西洋投掷了许多涡流。这些涡流是彼此相互作用的大型旋转涡流环，有时合并，有时会分解成较小的结构。这个充满活力的流场一起移动到西北盆地，将热量和盐带入南大西洋。事实证明，从印度洋的这种热量和盐分涌入对于我们的海洋大规模倾覆的循环非常重要，这些循环将热量和盐从盆地重新分配到盆地，并以帮助控制我们的气候的方式。但是，由于流场的混乱性，测量从印度到大西洋的热量和盐的通量并不是微不足道的。我们提出了一套新颖的测量值，可以使我们测量热量和盐通量，而不仅仅是从空间（又称Agulhas环）中可以看到的非常大的涡流，还可以毫无疑问地对Interocean Flux的贡献的较小的涡流特征。这些测量包括系泊设备，海洋湍流，精细的水文调查，海格滑板和两种不同类型的拉格朗日漂流者，可在地面和2000米深度进行测量。此外，我们将在与即将到来的SWOT卫星的科学校准阶段相吻合的时候进行这些测量结果，以便为该任务提供基础的数据。