Principal Investigator Raffaele Ferrari
Ocean eddies sets the physical and chemical environment of ocean ecosystems on space scales of kilometers and time scales of days, through its lateral stirring of tracers and control of nutrient supply by vertical motions. Indeed one can think of the ocean eddies as an "evolutionary hot-spot" in time and space for life in the ocean. Just as it is not a coincidence that elemental ratios in seawater are the same as those in life, so the life cycle of phytoplankton is in synchrony with mesoscale physics. Thus, eddies may well be a key determinant of the structure and function of the entire marine foodweb: the average structure of marine ecosystems may reflect the integrated, and rectified, effects of mesoscale processes, modulating primary production, community structure and hence the export of organic carbon to the interior ocean. The mesoscale circulation and life within it, acts and interacts locally, and yet has global consequences for climate. There is thus an inevitable disconnect between observations and process models which, of necessity, focus on regional descriptions, and climate questions which demand knowledge of integrated effects. In our research we attempt to link across these scales.