The project is mainly linked to three different projects:

·Corriente de afloramiento del noroeste africano (CANOA), CTM2005-00444/MAR (Octobre 2005 to December 2009). This project was supported through several actions and international funding, including a project from the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo and a technical collaboration with Oregon State University.

·Memoria Oceánica del Clima: mecanismos y rutas de formación de aguas superficiales en el Atlántico ecuatorial (MOC²), CTM2008-06438-C02-01 (January 2009 to December 2010).

·Fisiología Oceánica: una aproximación fisiológica al estudio del Cambio Climático natural y antropogénico en el Sistema Terrestre (FISIOCEAN), PIF08-006-1 (September 2008 to August 2010).

Project CANOA examined the coupling of the coastal and deep-ocean current systems off NW Africa. Special attention was placed to the eastern Gulf of Cadiz as the northernmost limit of this region. A total of four cruises were carried out with oceanographic measurements in this region, one of them specifically oriented to measuring the first plunging phases of the Mediterranean Outflow Water (MOW). This cruise covered a region some 25 km long and 10 km wide west of Camarinal Sill, tracking the MOW as it followed a deepening channel. We found that MOW develops substantial vertical instabilities, with significant density inversions, associated to regions where the slope of the channel increased rapidly. As a result the MOW experiences a rapid transformation, with the creation of a rapidly thickening intermediate water layer, of principal importance for the salinification of the region. Several conceptual and semi-analytical models were developed in this connection.

Project MOC² aims at investigating the returning limb of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, as surface and intermediate waters of Antarctic origin reached back to the Equatorial Atlantic Ocean. The project (expected termination date is December 2011) includes a cruise in the Equatorial Atlantic (42 days cruise in April and May 2010 with the R/V Hespérides), the continued development and deployment of instrumented subsurface drifters, and conceptual-numerical modeling efforts. An important emphasis of the project is on the returning paths for surface and intermediate waters along the South Atlantic and into the Equatorial Atlantic, in particular as these waters reach the northeastern tip of Brazil and become an intense equatorward western boundary current. A total of 55 hydrographic stations were carried out in this western boundary region, and 10 subsurface drifters were deployed. These data, together with historical oceanographic and atmospheric data from many varied sources, is currently under analysis. In parallel, several semi-analytical and numerical modeling studies are currently under development. Project MOC² has lead to close interaction with other national and international institutions, with special mention of the U. S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the France Mercator-Ocean forecasting system.

Project FISIOCEAN has been the first funded-project in our Department aimed at specifically investigating the ocean as a complex system, and how changes in the Sun’s energy transformation and distribution through the ocean may have led to past climate changes of the Earth System. One of the focuses of the project has been on understanding the role of the Southern Ocean as a key subsystem controlling the incorporation and distribution of solar energy to the ocean system. With this purpose the project has used both semi-analytical idealized models of the ocean system (box-type models) and historical data for currents and biogeochemical properties. The results point at the importance of the ocean circulation and stratification, particularly in the Southern Ocean, as the principal factor setting the carbon and heat content of the ocean surface layers and, therefore, the exchange of carbon and energy with the atmosphere.