Mesoscale eddies play an important role in regulating the global ocean ecosystem and climate variability. However, few studies have been found to focus on the survey of the underwater gliders (UGs) motion performance inside mesoscale eddies. The dynamic model of an UG considering the eddy density is established to predict its motion performance inside an eddy. Ignoring the effect of vertical velocity inside the eddy on the motion of UG, the simulation results and experimental data are compared to verify the derived model. From the analysis of the motion performance, the vertical velocity is larger at 400∼940 m depth than that at a depth of 0∼400 m in the ascent. Considering the vertical structures of parameters within eddies, the climbing profiles are chosen as the available samples to capture an eddy better. The larger error caused by the eddy density mainly occurs near the depth of the thermocline. Moreover, there is a stronger influence of eddy density on the motion performance of the UG in the ascent than that in the descent. The results show the differences in the effect of the mesoscale eddy density on the motion performance of “Petrel II” UG in the descent and ascent, and they provide a sampling suggestion for the application of UGs in the mesoscale eddy observation.

Autonomous underwater glider fleets are increasingly deployed to observe mesoscale eddies, yet a methodology for evaluating observation quality under uncertainty remains lacking. This paper presents SCOPE, a framework integrating uncertainty propagation, multi-dimensional assessment, and objective metric selection. A 27-metric evaluation system spanning seven quality categories is constructed; an Adaptive Core Metric Selection (ACMS) algorithm compresses these to a compact core subset. Two-stage sensitivity analysis identifies the velocity ratio as the dominant parameter with a non-monotonic effect. The optimal velocity ratio decreases with eddy intensity in both an analytical model (0.58 to 0.47) and four real HYCOM eddies (2.35 to 0.35). ACMS converges on all four real eddies, and parameter rankings are consistent across environments. An ablation experiment in the analytical model validates the effectiveness of the two sensitivity-derived design rules (25% and 45.8%) gap closure and reveals their non-additive interaction. SCOPE offers a framework and diagnostic workflow for uncertainty-aware evaluation of autonomous ocean observation systems.

Autonomous underwater glider fleets are increasingly deployed to observe mesoscale eddies, yet a methodology for evaluating observation quality under uncertainty remains lacking. This paper presents SCOPE, a framework integrating uncertainty propagation, multi-dimensional assessment, and objective metric selection. A 27-metric evaluation system spanning seven quality categories is constructed; an Adaptive Core Metric Selection (ACMS) algorithm compresses these to a compact core subset. Two-stage sensitivity analysis identifies the velocity ratio as the dominant parameter with a non-monotonic effect. The optimal velocity ratio decreases with eddy intensity in both an analytical model (0.58 to 0.47) and four real HYCOM eddies (2.35 to 0.35). ACMS converges on all four real eddies, and parameter rankings are consistent across environments. An ablation experiment in the analytical model validates the effectiveness of the two sensitivity-derived design rules (25% and 45.8%) gap closure and reveals their non-additive interaction. SCOPE offers a framework and diagnostic workflow for uncertainty-aware evaluation of autonomous ocean observation systems.