Project Grant 2149292

This three-year, $623,876 National Science Foundation Division of Ocean Sciences project grant funds research at Oregon State University to investigate shelf and open-ocean interactions in the southern African region through process modeling. Specifically, the awardee will use modeling to characterize interactions between the Agulhas Current, Agulhas Bank, and southern Benguela upwelling region and evaluate their sensitivity to climate variability and climate change. The central hypothesis is that shelf and deep-ocean interactions are modulated by the transit of Agulhas eddies and wind stress forcing controls circulation in the inner shelf and exchanges between regions. Understanding these interactions will contribute to forecasting climate change impacts on regional ecosystems and potential feedbacks. This award reflects the NSF's mission to expand fundamental geosciences knowledge and understanding of the integrated Earth system through basic research in atmospheric, earth, and ocean sciences, as described in the Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050).