Assessing the role of eddies in exchanging nutrients across the European Shelf

海洋中充满了随时间变化的漩涡环流，我们称之为涡流。这些涡流将热量、营养物质和碳从一个地区转移到另一个地区，影响到这些特性在当地的储存。这种涡流交换在强气流中可能变得很重要，比如边界流、射流和斜坡流。然而，虽然在整个海洋中都可以看到涡旋（如遥感观测），但很少有系统的、重复的观测揭示涡旋是如何在水平方向上转移特性的，特别是在海面以下。相反，我们必须依靠模型和理论研究的结合来理解海洋中涡流的作用，通常与大气中天气系统的行为相似。在这项研究中，我们希望使用新的滑翔机技术来确定涡旋是如何在水平方向转移营养的。我们希望在现有项目FASTNET的支持下，在三个不同的地点调查欧洲大陆架上的这种涡旋转移，研究大陆架断裂上的物理交换。我们的目标是在两个滑翔机中包括营养传感器，一个由FASTNET支持，另一个通过该呼叫支持。结合FASTNET巡航的营养数据，我们的目标是使用滑翔机数据来估计这三个不同地点在开放海洋和大陆架海之间的营养物质的涡流通量。我们的假设是，涡旋提供了从开放海洋到大陆架海的无机营养物的通量，穿过大陆架断裂，以及从大陆架海到开放海洋的溶解有机营养物的返回通量。大陆架上营养物质的涡流流动对维持生物生产力具有潜在的重要意义，这里的光合作用速率特别高，维持了渔业活动，并提供了大气中二氧化碳的生物减少。从长远来看，滑翔机技术有潜力提供量化整个海洋漩涡通量所需的重复观测。这一步对于真正了解热量、营养物质和碳是如何在整个海洋中转移的，以及海洋如何在气候系统中运作的更广泛的目标是必要的。

The ocean is full of time-varying, swirling circulations, called eddies. These eddies transfer heat, nutrients and carbon from one region to another, affecting the local store of each of these properties. This eddy exchange potentially becomes important across strong flows, such as boundary currents, jets and slope currents. However, while eddies are seen to occur throughout the ocean (such as remotely sensed observations), there have been very few systematic, repeated observations revealing how eddies transfer properties in the horizontal, particularly below the surface. Instead we have to rely on a combination of model and theoretical studies to understand the role of eddies in the ocean, often drawing parallels with how weather systems behave in the atmosphere.In this study, we wish to use the new glider technology to identify how eddies transfer nutrients in the horizontal. We wish to investigate this eddy transfer on the European Shelf at three different sites, drawing on the support of an existing programme, FASTNET, examining the physical exchange across the shelf break. Our aim is to include nutrient sensors in two gliders, one supported under FASTNET and the other supported via this call. Together with nutrient data from FASTNET cruises, we aim to use the glider data to estimate the eddy flux of nutrients in these three different sites between the open ocean and shelf seas. Our hypothesis is that the eddies provide a flux of inorganic nutrients from the open ocean to the shelf seas, across the shelf break, as well as a return flux of dissolved organic nutrients from the shelf seas to the open ocean.The eddy fluxes of nutrients onto the shelf are potentially important in sustaining biological productivity, there are particularly high rates of photosynthesis here, sustaining fishing activity and providing a biological drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide.In the longer term, the glider technology has the potential to provide the repeated observations needed to quantify eddies fluxes throughout the ocean. This step is necessary to really understand how heat, nutrients and carbon are transferred throughout the ocean, as well as the wider goal of how the ocean operates in the climate system.