WHIRLS – The impacts of ocean fine-scale whirls on climate and ecosystems
Short description
WHIRLS will focus on understanding how smaller currents (1-100 km in size), so-called "whirls", affect the climate, ocean circulation, and the marine biome.
Our area of interest is the Cape Basin – a part of the Agulhas Current System where the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Southern Ocean meet. This region has the strongest and most energetic currents in the world’s ocean; they play a key role in the global ocean circulation, and therefore strongly influences global climate.
The project will use state-of-the-art ocean robots and autonomous surface vehicles to collect these novel observations to get high-resolution views of the ocean. There will be field campaigns using multiple research ships in 2026 to observe the ocean fine-scale and associated biogeochemical responses.
Project PIs and institutions
Sebastiaan Swart – Department of Marine 91̽»¨s, University 91̽»¨,
Arne Biastoch – GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany,
Sabrina Speich – Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France,
Sarah Fawcett – University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Project members at the Department of Marine 91̽»¨s
Sebastiaan Swart, Professor, Department of Marine 91̽»¨s
Marcel du Plessis, Researcher, Department of Marine 91̽»¨s
Johan Edholm, PhD student, Department of Marine 91̽»¨s
Vincent Doriot, PhD student, Department of Marine 91̽»¨s
Mariana Lage, Post doc, Department of Marine 91̽»¨s
Solange Coadou, PhD student, Ecole Naturale Supériure, Paris
ERC Synergy Grant
Financier of this project is The European Research Council (ERC) via the ERC Synergy Grant. The point of the ERC Synergy Grant is to bring together researchers with different expertise to work on very complex problems that no person or institute can address on its own.
Project size
€12 million for 6 years duration. University 91̽»¨ will be the biggest beneficiary of the grant, where a total of approximately €4 million (SEK 50 million) will be coming to the Department of Marine 91̽»¨s.
