The FaSt-SWOT campaign will focus on the role of fine scales in horizontal and vertical exchange in the upper ocean.
The Fine-Scale ocean currents from integrated multi-platform experiments and numerical simulations: contribution to the new SWOT satellite mission (FaSt-SWOT) project proposal has been accepted by the Spanish Research Agency at the end of June 2022. The FaSt-SWOT project will be carried out in the western Mediterranean Sea during the fast-sampling phase of the SWOT satellite and will focus on understanding the role of fine scales in the vertical and horizontal exchanges in the upper ocean.
The FaSt-SWOT proposal builds upon the previous PRE-SWOT funded project, which performed a high-resolution multi-platform and multidisciplinary experiment to explore the fine-scale ocean variability (10-100 km) in preparation for calibration/validation of SWOT activities. PRE-SWOT was coordinated with the French PROTEUS-SWOT survey which analyzed the co- variability of fine-scale features and phytoplankton community.
The FaSt-SWOT team is the only Spanish member of the international SWOT Science Team (SWOT-ST), to which FaSt-SWOT will significantly contribute providing world-class experimental capacities for finescale multi-platform experiments and high-resolution modeling in one of the areas selected for SWOT fast-sampling phase.
In addition to the FaSt-SWOT campaign, there are two other campaigns that will be carried out in the western Mediterranean Sea during the SWOT fast-sampling phase: the BIOSWOT-Med campaign that will focus on understanding what drives phytoplankton diversity at fine scales, and the C-SWOT-2023 campaign that will seek to understand the role of fine scales in the interactions of ocean dynamics and biogeochemistry in coastal zones in the NW Mediterranean Sea.
In addition, a fourth campaign in the Marmara Sea will work on understanding how finescale processes interact in water mixing at the interface between Black Sea water and Mediterranean Sea water.
An harmonized methodological approach will be used for the sampling strategy for all offshore campaigns of the SWOT-AdAC Consortium so as to maximize the intercomparison of data across different sites.