SAGA34S Cruise, RV Sarmiento de Gamboa

• Main Authors: Hernández, Alonso, CSIC - Unidad de Tecnología Marina (UTM)
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Oceanographic geographical features; Punta Arenas; Cape Town; Chile; South Africa; Sarmiento de Gamboa; research vessel; South Atlantic Ocean; Air temperature; Wind speed and direction; Atmospheric humidity; Solar Radiation; Air pressure; Date and time; Vertical spatial coordinates; Horizontal spatial co-ordinates; Salinity of the water column; Temperature of the water column; Horizontal velocity of the water column (currents); Alkalinity; acidity and pH of the water column; Antarctic; Sarmiento; Antarc*; NADW; North Atlantic Deep Water; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/339585; https://doi.org/10.20351/29SG20220201

SAGA34S Cruise (29SG20220201) carried out on the Research Vessel Sarmiento de Gamboa in 2022. The large-scale currents in the South Atlantic Ocean are the outcome of a combination of common and singular conditions: the classical low/high latitude easterly/westerly wind pattern is here accompanied by the very intense Antarctic Circumpolar Current (AACC) to the south and the asymmetry between the western and eastern (long versus short) margins. Further, the ocean operates as the outer portion of an inverted estuary – the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) – with net northward upper and intermediate transports compensated by net southward deep transport, and also influenced by northward Antarctic near-bottom flow. All these factors together cause relatively shallow central waters in the South Atlantic Ocean, extending over the entire subtropical-tropical gyres and overlying relatively intense and thick intermediate flows. Further, this ocean basin is characterized by poleward/equatorward western boundary currents at high/low latitudes, which are fed by interior zonal flows. Such a particular pattern, together with the peculiarities of the geographic domain, requires specific sampling strategies that include both zonal and meridional hydrographic transects. Here we place special attention to a pathway for both the Agulhas rings and the North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) along the border between the tropical and subtropical gyres, what we have named the South Atlantic Gateway (SAGA).