Improving our knowledge on the relationship between the physical and biological processes in the upper ocean is essential for understanding and predicting how the ocean and the marine ecosystems respond to changes in the climate system. Advection and mixing associated with mesoscale and sub-mesoscale oceanic features such as fronts, meanders, eddies and filaments is of fundamental importance for the exchanges of heat, fresh water and biogeochemical tracers between the surface and the ocean interior.

This session will provide a forum to properly address the new scientific challenges associated with mesoscale and sub-mesoscale variability (between 1 km and 300 km), based on observations (both in situ and satellite and multi-sensor approaches), theory, and numerical simulations. We strongly encourage contributions aiming at estimating physical-biogeochemical interactions, eddy transport, vertical exchanges and frontal structures. A particular emphasis is put on challenges associated with future wide swath altimetric missions (SWOT).