Coherent Lagrangian swirls among submesoscale motions.

Beron-Vera, F J; Hadjighasem, A; Xia, Q; Olascoaga, M J; Haller, G · Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · 2019

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Abstract

The emergence of coherent Lagrangian swirls (CLSs) among submesoscale motions in the ocean is illustrated. This is done by applying recent nonlinear dynamics tools for Lagrangian coherence detection on a surface flow realization produced by a data-assimilative submesoscale-permitting ocean general circulation model simulation of the Gulf of Mexico. Both mesoscale and submesoscale CLSs are extracted. These extractions prove the relevance of coherent Lagrangian eddies detected in satellite-altimetry-based geostrophic flow data for the arguably more realistic ageostrophic multiscale flow.