Collaborative Research: FOCUS: Florida Current and Sea Level

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole MA

Investigators

Abstract

The project will investigate the relationship between sea-level changes in coastal Florida and variations in Gulf Stream transport of water and heat. To address this goal, the project will use in-situ measurements of current velocity, pressure and sound signals as they travel throughout a cross-section between Florida and The Bahamas. Results of this project should help explain reasons for exacerbated 'sunny-day' flooding in Florida, and perhaps other coastal regions of the United States. Results should also help illuminate the linkage between variations in Gulf Stream transport at regional scales and ocean motions and heat content at global scale. Investigators will interact closely with resilience program managers of a county in southeast Florida that is affected by increasingly frequent flooding from the ocean. This study seeks to understand the relationship between Gulf Stream transport variability, in time and in the stream-normal direction, and coastal sea-level variability. Decoupling between Gulf Stream transport variations and coastal sea-level fluctuations is hypothesized to be related to modes of variability in mass loading and heat content across the Florida Straits; that these modes affect heat transport and coastal sea level at different time scales; and that understanding these modes will improve understanding of AMOC heat transport and coastal flood risk. These objectives and hypotheses will be investigated over 5 years with measurements of currents, pressure and inverted echosounders (CPIES) at the latitude of the transport cable that monitors the Florida Current. Analyses will relate cross-shore variability of the Gulf Stream to coastal sea level. The study might help understand the variability in incidence of 'sunny-day flooding' in the east coast of Florida. Results will be shared with the Miami-Dade County's resilience program manager. The project will support new CPIES in the cross-section of a western boundary current. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.