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

阿古拉斯洋流将温暖而咸的亚热带印度洋海水带向南部，沿着东非海岸。经过好望角后，阿古拉斯洋流越过非洲大陆的尖端，转向印度洋，在南非海岸西南部的开普盆地向南大西洋投掷大量漩涡。这些漩涡是相互作用的大型旋转涡环，有时合并，有时分裂成较小的结构。这些充满活力的流场一起向西北方向移动，穿过开普盆地，把热量和盐带到更新鲜的南大西洋。事实证明，这种来自印度洋的热量和盐的涌入对于我们海洋的大规模翻转循环非常重要，它将热量和盐从一个盆地重新分配到另一个盆地，并跨越纬度，从而有助于控制我们的气候。然而，由于流场的混沌性质，测量从印度洋到大西洋的热通量和盐通量并不是微不足道的。我们提出了一套新的测量方法，使我们能够测量热量和盐通量，不仅在从太空中可以看到的真正大的涡旋（又名阿古拉斯环）中，而且还可以测量较小的涡旋特征，其对海洋间通量的贡献仍然未知。这些测量包括系泊、海洋湍流、高分辨率水文调查、海上滑翔机和两种不同类型的拉格朗日漂流器，用于在水面和2000米深处进行测量。此外，我们将在即将到来的SWOT卫星的科学校准阶段进行这些测量，以便为该使命提供地面真实数据。

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.