What is COUPLING II? What do we aim?

Date 29th of January, 2023

COUPLING II is a Research Proposal currently submitted to the National Research Agency of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation (Call: Proyectos de Generación de Conocimiento 2023). This Research Proposal (pending evaluation) targets the Bio-Physical-Chemical Coupling and Connectivity between the phytoplankton blooms in the Bransfield Strait and the NW Weddell Sea. The Research Proposal COUPLING II represents a continuation of the previous efforts that members of this research team have performed in the past, starting with CIEMAR, then ESEPAC, BREDDIES, COUPLING, and PEGASO projects, all of them funded by the Spanish Government since 1999 as part of the Polar program. The Research Proposal COUPLING II is designed as a follow up project built upon the achievements of COUPLING. 

COUPLING II is planned as a multidimensional project in terms of fieldwork, logistics and involved scientific disciplines (combining physical oceanography, chemical oceanography, biogeochemistry, biological oceanography, genomics and numerical modeling). This challenging approach will be addressed through the coordination of 8 research groups from two institutions (ULPGC and CSIC), clustered into 2 subprojects (SubProject 1 and SubProject 2), and the involvement of an extended network of national and international collaborators. 

The complete team of this Coordinated Project comprises experts in Physical, Chemical, and Biological Oceanography, as well as Operational Oceanography and Numerical modeling. They apply their expertise to the collective endeavor of studying, in a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary manner, bio-physical-chemical coupling phenomena in the Bransfield Strait and its connectivity with the western margin of the Weddell Gyre, from which a portion of the waters reaching the Bransfield Strait originates, circumventing the northeastern extremity of the Antarctic Peninsula (Figure 1).

Ultimately, we aim to elucidate the bio-physical-chemical processes shaping marine plankton structure and functioning in the Bransfield Strait, the Weddell Sea, and its connectivity.