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First Agulhas System mini-Symposium - growing ocean research capacity in South Africa
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Right on our doorstep, flowing down our east coast and supplying our beaches with wonderful warm water, we have one of the strongest, fastest, most dynamic and most fascinating currents in the world's oceans.
However, the last dedicated symposium on the Agulhas Current took place more than three years ago, and most of the presenters were from the Northern Hemisphere! They are very interested in the little patch of ocean off our east coast and here's why:
As it turns out, the Agulhas Current plays a critical role in both local and global ocean circulation and climate regulation. The fast-flowing western boundary jet provides what may be the highest meridional heat flux in the world's oceans. The leakage of waters from the Agulhas into the South Atlantic is a vital link in the global thermohaline circulation, feeding warm and salty Indian Ocean waters into the upper limb of the global overturning circulation.
Regionally, the Agulhas Current exerts a strong control on rainfall and climate over South Africa, acting as a major source of latent heat for onshore wind systems. The current is also of great economic importance. The growth of the oil and gas industry, shifts in fisheries, and the high human population density along the east coast of Southern Africa has seen an expansion of applications for Agulhas research, at a regional as well as the global scale.
Innovative approaches
The Agulhas is a unique current system, with some of the fastest currents and strongest dynamics of any ocean region in the world. This means that understanding this system from the coast to offshore requires innovative approaches.
The PhD and postdoc students at SAEON's Egagasini Node therefore decided that it was about time to get all the Agulhas researchers in the country together and catch up on what work is being undertaken, and what has been accomplished since the 2012 Chapman conference on the Agulhas Current.
The idea was to have a bare-bones, efficient (and hence mini) symposium where the focus was purely on active research and networking. As all students from Honours level upwards were invited to attend, it also provided them with an opportunity to practice their presentation skills in preparation for bigger international conferences and meetings.
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Thanks to sponsorship from SAEON and the Nansen Tutu Centre and the boundless energy of organiser Katherine Hutchinson, the meeting took place on 26 August. It was hosted at the Hotel School of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), which provided a perfect waterfront setting for the conference.
Attendees included academics and students from SAEON, the University of Cape Town (UCT), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), CPUT and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University NMMU.
Prof. William Bond, SAEON's Chief Scientist, Dr Juliet Hermes, Manager of SAEON's Egagasini Node and Prof. Chris Reason, Head of UCT's Oceanography Department provided a healthy dose of experience to balance the exuberance of the student presenters. A large portion of time was devoted to discussions after each session, with issues of dynamics, observation technology and ocean modelling all seeing healthy debate.
Growing the role of SA researchers
Prizes for outstanding presentations were awarded to Jarred Voorneveld (B.Tech, CPUT) for his talk on 'A study of the dynamic variability of the Agulhas Retroflection using Argo float technology' and Alice McGrath for her talk titled 'Environmental shifts on the Agulhas Bank'.
With excellent feedback from all participants, we hope to hold another meeting of Agulhas minds next year, to further grow the role of South African researchers in Agulhas System research.
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