Table of Contents

• Dataset Description
• Parameters
• Instruments
• Deployments
• Project Information
• Program Information

Mixed Layer Depths, Ross Sea and APFZ

The U.S. Southern Ocean JGOFS program, called Antarctic Environment and Southern Ocean Process Study (AESOPS), began in August 1996 and continued through March 1998. The U.S. JGOFS AESOPS program focused on two regions in the Southern Ocean: an east/west section of the Ross-Sea continental shelf along 76.5°S, and a second north/south section of the Southern Ocean spanning the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) at ~170°W (identified as the Polar Front). The science program, coordinated by Antarctic Support Associates (ASA), comprised eleven cruises using the R.V.I.B Nathaniel B. Palmer and R/V Roger Revelle as observational platforms and for deployment and recovery of instrumented moorings and sediment-trap arrays. The Ross-Sea region was occupied on six occasions and the Polar Front five times. Mapping data were obtained from SeaSoar, ADCP, and bathymetric systems. Satellite coverage was provided by the NASA SeaWiFS and the NOAA/NASA Pathfinder programs.

The United States Joint Global Ocean Flux Study was a national component of international JGOFS and an integral part of global climate change research.

The U.S. launched the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) in the late 1980s to study the ocean carbon cycle. An ambitious goal was set to understand the controls on the concentrations and fluxes of carbon and associated nutrients in the ocean. A new field of ocean biogeochemistry emerged with an emphasis on quality measurements of carbon system parameters and interdisciplinary field studies of the biological, chemical and physical process which control the ocean carbon cycle. As we studied ocean biogeochemistry, we learned that our simple views of carbon uptake and transport were severely limited, and a new "wave" of ocean science was born. U.S. JGOFS has been supported primarily by the U.S. National Science Foundation in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Energy and the Office of Naval Research. U.S. JGOFS, ended in 2005 with the conclusion of the Synthesis and Modeling Project (SMP).