Understanding the Agulhas System, as well as its impacts on coastal features

This is student and postdoc driven work, which investigates the Agulhas Current System as well as its impacts on the South African coastal features. It is mostly based on modelling work, but does use in situ and remote sensing data as well. There is 1 PDP Postdoc and 2 PDP PhDs working on this and details are found in the PDP applications and the SAEON internal project document

A number of opposing hypothesis regarding the Greater Agulhas System were recently raised and discussed at the American Geophysical Union’s Chapman Conference on the Greater Agulhas System and the need for increased understanding was highlighted. The Conference also highlighted areas where knowledge is lacking and collaboration is necessary. This project aims to work with national and international collaborators to tackle some of these questions through multi-disciplinary approaches using model and in situ data There are numerous questions which will be tackled by this project and the key focus will depend on the strengths of the successful applicants. Broadly, the variability in the GAS and its forcing mechanisms and relations to the Southern Hemisphere Oceans will be investigated using Ocean General Circulation Models, regional models and physical/biological coupled models, as well as in situ and remote sensing observations. The research will also use idealised modelling studies to understand why models are not able to well represent the GAS and the interocean exchange.
The project aims to improve our understanding of mesoscale and seasonal through to decadal variability in the Southern Hemisphere Oceans and the impact on key regional oceanographic features. In particular this project will focus on the Greater Agulhas Current Region and inter-ocean exchange, as well as the impact of the offshore circulation on the inshore oceanography. There will be opportunities to couple physical-biological regional models, as well as using data from coupled climate models.
The incumbents will also have the opportunity to run numerical models in order to investigate issues surrounding the representation of the system in models. This will include, for example looking at slip versus no slip conditions and the advection scheme of the model, as recommended in the numerical discussion of the Chapman conference.

This is student and postdoc driven work, which investigates the Agulhas Current System as well as its impacts on the South African coastal features. It is mostly based on modelling work, but does use in situ and remote sensing data as well. There is 1 PDP Postdoc and 2 PDP PhDs working on this and details are found in the PDP applications and the SAEON internal project document