AGU Chapman Conference on the Agulhas System and its Role in Changing Ocean Circulation, Climate, and Marine Ecosystems

American Geophysical Union, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

This award will provide partial support for a Chapman Conference on the Agulhas system that will be held 8-12 October 2012 in Western Cape, South Africa. Chapman Conferences are topic meetings sponsored by the American Geophysical Union and are designed to promote opportunities to discuss scientific issues that are not normally available at larger meetings. Attendance at the October conference is expected to be on the order of 125 participants to include senior scientists, midcareer scientists, postdoctoral researchers, and students. The Agulhas System plays a significant role in the global ocean circulation and climate. Warm, saline waters from the Indian Ocean flow into the Atlantic as part of the interocean exchange around the southern tip of Africa. Ongoing increases in this so-called Agulhas Leakage, presently under anthropogenic forcing, could strengthen the global overturning circulation in the Atlantic at a time when warming and accelerated meltwater input in the North Atlantic are predicted to weaken it. However compared to processes in the North Atlantic, the Agulhas system has been largely ignored as a potential trigger or stabilizer of climate variability. At regional scales the Agulhas influences extreme weather events while interannual rainfall variations in southern Africa are correlated with warm and cold anomalies in the Agulhas system, associated with the Indian Ocean climate modes. Large Marine Ecosystems in the region and the distribution of large pelagic species and their fisheries are also influenced by variations in the physical Agulhas system in an as yet poorly known manner. The purpose of this Chapman Conference is to identify the most pressing questions and to design modeling experiments in combination with paleoceanographic and (sustained) modern observations to establish the role of the Agulhas system from regional to global scales.