Collaborative Research: Investigating meso- and submeso-scale variability in air-sea CO2 exchange in the Gulf Stream region with autonomous platforms

北大西洋的墨西哥湾流从南向北输送了大量的暖水。当冷风吹过海洋时，大部分热量都散失到大气中。这种热量损失导致二氧化碳在海水中的溶解度发生局部变化，并增加了上层海洋的混合。这两种影响都会影响海洋从大气中吸收二氧化碳的能力。了解该地区海洋的碳吸收量对我们理解和预测决定大气二氧化碳水平的全球碳循环的能力非常重要。然而，墨西哥湾流地区的情况变化很快，很难取样。在这个项目中，研究人员将部署一个机器人滑翔机，在数周内测量墨西哥湾流区域1000米以上的温度和盐度。这架滑翔机将与其他名为saildrone的机器人车辆重叠，后者负责测量地表水和大气。这些工具将共同绘制海洋状况和碳吸收的图像，这是短期船舶采样无法实现的。该项目将支持一名早期职业科学家、一名博士后学者和一名研究生。在该项目中，首席研究员（pi）将在2022年春末夏初部署一台自主滑翔机，用于测量墨西哥湾流区域1000米以上的地下海洋特性。这架滑翔机将瞄准三架由Google.org资助的独立项目部署在该地区的帆船无人机周围的水域。像Saildrone这样的无人水面飞行器可以自主地以高时间分辨率测量表面海洋和大气变量，但通常缺乏地下观测。来自滑翔机的水柱数据和来自saildrone的海面数据将允许pi测试滑翔机- saildrone组合协同作用的有效性，作为一种整体表征数十公里尺度上海洋变化的方法。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。

The Gulf Stream current in the North Atlantic Ocean transports a large amount of warm water from south to north. Much of this heat is lost to the atmosphere as cold winds blow over the ocean. This heat loss causes local changes in the solubility of carbon dioxide in seawater and increases mixing of the upper ocean. Both of these impacts affect the ocean’s ability to take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Knowledge of the ocean’s carbon uptake in this region is important for our ability to understand and predict the global carbon cycle that determines atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Conditions in the Gulf Stream region change rapidly and are hard to sample, however. In this project, investigators will deploy a robotic glider for several weeks to measure temperature and salinity in the upper 1000 meters of the Gulf Stream region. The glider will overlap with other robotic vehicles called Saildrones that take measurements of surface waters and the atmosphere. Together these vehicles will produce a picture of ocean conditions and carbon uptake that is not possible with short-term sampling from ships. This project will support an early career scientist, a postdoctoral scholar, and a graduate student.In this project, the Principal Investigators (PIs) will deploy one autonomous glider during the late spring-early summer of 2022 that will measure subsurface ocean properties in upper 1000 m of the Gulf Stream region. This glider will target the waters around three Saildrones that are deployed in this area through an independent project funded by Google.org. Uncrewed surface vehicles such as Saildrone autonomously measure surface oceanic and atmospheric variables at high temporal resolution but generally lack subsurface observations. The water column data from the glider and the surface data from the Saildrones will allow the PIs to test the effectiveness of the synergy of the glider-Saildrone combination as a method to holistically characterize the ocean variability on the scale of tens of kilometers.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.