Understanding Gulf Ocean Systems Grants
The Understanding Gulf Ocean Systems (UGOS) Grants are part of an initiative that seeks to improve forecasts of the dynamics in the Gulf in spatial and time scales useful for a broad community of stakeholders.
Not accepting applications
- The Story of Float 7513 Jul 22, 2025 Perspectives
- Gulf Research Program Launches Program to Improve Forecasts of Important Currents of the Gulf of Mexico Mar 18, 2022 Program News
- Predicting, Managing, and Preparing for Disasters Like Hurricane Ida Aug 31, 2021 Feature Story
- National Academies' Gulf Research Program to Collaborate with Shell on Gulf of Mexico Ocean Observation Effort Nov 14, 2018 News Release
Cycle 3 (Awarded 2022)
Topic: Fostering Innovation to Improve Understanding and Prediction of the Gulf of Mexico Loop Current System
Total Awards: 3 projects totaling $22,007,703
Grant Type: Loop Current System Research Campaign
Grant Description: A collaborative 5 year program utilizing existing and emerging understanding and data to improve skill of sustained continuous operational forecasts of ocean dynamics for end users.
Awarded Projects
- Advancing Gulf of Mexico Operational Forecasting with Application to Fisheries, Industry Safety, and Natural Hazards (GOFFISH)
- An Operational System using Real-time Subsurface Observations to Improve Loop Current Forecasts
- Gulf Consortium for Offshore Risk Reduction Engaging Stakeholders (GulfCORES)
Cycle 2 (Awarded 2019)
Topic: Fostering Innovation to Improve Understanding and Prediction of the Gulf of Mexico Loop Current System
Total Awards: 7 projects totaling $2,015,784
Grant Type: Loop Current System Research Campaign
Grant Description: Grants of up to 18 months to support innovative theories, technologies, or methodologies that build upon existing understanding of the dynamics driving the LCS and could help improve forecasting capabilities of the Loop Current and its associated eddies.
Awarded Projects
- An Altimetry-Based Statistical Forecast Model for the Loop Current System
- Development of an Unstructured-Grid Nesting Method for the Study of Loop Current Frontal Eddies
- A Lagrangian Methodology to Quantify and Predict the Impact of Caribbean Eddies on LCS Dynamics
- Lagrangian Metrics for the Identification and Prediction of Loop Current Eddy Shedding Events
- Loop Current System SSH and Subsurface Current Prediction with a Transfer Learning Approach
- The Loop Current and the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River System: Interactions, Variability and Modeling Requirements
- Technology and Methods for Yucatán Channel Monitoring
Cycle 1 (Awarded 2018)
Topic: Studies and Observations to Inform the Loop Current Campaign
Total Awards: 8 projects totaling $10,365,081
Grant Type: Loop Current System Research Campaign
Grant Description: Research, observation, and analysis activities to improve understanding, modeling, and forecasting of the Gulf of Mexico Loop Current System.
Awarded Projects
- Dry Tortugas and Lower Keys High Frequency Radars
- Gulf of Mexico Loop Current and Eddy Observations from High Frequency Radar Systems
- Informing the Loop Current Campaign: Data Compilation to Improve Understanding, Simulation, and Prediction of the Loop Current System
- Loop Current Floats: Near-Real-Time Hydrography and Deep Velocity in the Loop Current System Using Autonomous Profilers
- Numerical Modeling
- Passive Gulf of Mexico Loop Current Observations from High Frequency Radar Across the Yucatan Strait
- Pressure and Current Meters
- Taking the Pulse of the West Florida Shelf at a Hypothesized Loop Current Control Point