Southern Ocean Biogeochemistry: Education and Research

With extreme oceanographic variability over very short distances, the waters around South Africa provide a wealth of information on the mechanistic controls on marine biogeochemical variability. South African waters occupy a special niche in oceanography lying at the junction between western and eastern boundary systems and the Southern Ocean. This natural laboratory offers a special opportunity to research oceanographers to study a range of different mechanisms impacting on the regional biogeochemistry. Both natural and anthropogenic forcing has an effect on each of these different systems with analogous implications for marine systems elsewhere. Understanding these mechanisms is necessary for developing accurate models of the biogeochemical response of the oceans to (inter alia) changes in atmospheric characteristics such as the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave (Southern Annular Mode) and Benguela Ninos. The Southern Ocean is considered to be one of the two, North Atlantic being the other, most important oc ean sinks of anthropogenic CO2. However, the Southern Ocean remains one of the least sampled and understood ocean domains. The approach in this proposal is to train and educate South African Oceanographers and Students through joint research using a combi nation of observations and diagnostic modelling to understand the carbon biogeochemistry of the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic. Importantly, this approach builds on existing strengths within each of the collaborating groups. This initiative is contextualis ed within the IPY global effort The proposed approach is to synthesise recent literature, re-analyse the data archives and to increase knowledge through observations from 2 project cruises. Subsequent data analysis will result in the production of scienti fic peer reviewed journals and 2 South African PhDs