Inertia-induced accumulation of flotsam in the subtropical gyres

Recent surveys of marine plastic debris density have revealed high levels in the center of the subtropical gyres. Earlier studies have argued that the formation of great garbage patches is due to Ekman convergence in such regions. In this work we report a tendency so far overlooked of drogued and undrogued drifters to accumulate distinctly over the subtropical gyres, with undrogued drifters accumulating in the same areas where plastic debris accumulate. We show that the observed accumulation is too fast for Ekman convergence to explain it. We demonstrate that the accumulation is controlled by finite-size and buoyancy (i.e., inertial) effects on undrogued drifter motion subjected to ocean current and wind drags. We infer that the motion of flotsam in general is constrained by similar effects. This is done by using a newly proposed Maxey--Riley equation which models the submerged (surfaced) drifter portion as a sphere of the fractional volume that is submerged (surfaced).Comment: Submitted to Geophys. Res. Letter

Extracting quasi-steady Lagrangian transport patterns from the ocean circulation: An application to the Gulf of Mexico

We construct a climatology of Lagrangian coherent structures (LCSs), the concealed skeleton that shapes transport, with a twelve-year-long data-assimilative simulation of the sea-surface circulation in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). Computed as time-mean Cauchy-Green strain tensorlines of the climatological velocity, the climatological LCSs (cLCSs) unveil recurrent Lagrangian circulation patterns. cLCSs strongly constrain the ensemble-mean Lagrangian circulation of the instantaneous model velocity, thus we show that a climatological velocity may preserve meaningful transport information. Also, the climatological transport patterns we report agree well with GoM kinematics and dynamics, as described in several previous observational and numerical studies. For example, cLCSs identify regions of persistent isolation, and suggest that coastal regions previously identified as high-risk for pollution impact, are regions of maximal attraction. Also, we show examples where cLCSs are remarkably similar to transport patterns observed during the Deepwater Horizon and Ixtoc oil spills, and during the Grand LAgrangian Deployment (GLAD) experiment. Thus, it is shown that cLCSs are an efficient way of synthesizing vast amounts of Lagrangian information. The cLCS method confirms previous GoM studies, and contributes to our understanding by revealing the persistent nature of the dynamics and kinematics treated therein.Comment: To be submitte

Coherent spore dispersion via drop-leaf interactions

Dispersion of plant pathogens, such as rust spores, is responsible for a large portion of global crop production loss every year, in addition to the threat they pose to human health. However, the release mechanism of pathogens and other allergic particles from flexible plant surfaces into canopy turbulence has not been well understood. Focusing on the phenomenon of increased air-borne aerosols after rainfall, the present study elucidates how the coupling of leaf elasticity and drop momentum directly modulates surrounding airflow and spore transport. We found that drop impacts on leaves shed asymmetric vortex dipoles (about the leaf width axis $\hat{y}$) and generate stream flows that enable pathogens to escape. To understand the mechanics, we first built and experimentally validated a joint model of impact mechanics and airfoil potentials to parametrically link drop momentum, vibration speed, and dispersion capacity. Then with Lagrangian diagnostics, we uncovered different sets of coherent structures around the leaf, providing a dynamical description for how spores escape during rainfall. The work proposes here a stand-alone, direct dispersion mechanics that incorporates the role of plant substrate elasticity and emergent flow coherence. The physical insights extracted here can help build physically informed analytics models for local crop disease management.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Geodesic theory of transport barriers in two-dimensional flows

We introduce a new approach to locating key material transport barriers in two-dimensional, non-autonomous dynamical systems, such as unsteady planar fluid flows. Seeking transport barriers as minimally stretching material lines, we obtain that such barriers must be shadowed by minimal geodesics under the Riemannian metric induced by the Cauchy–Green strain tensor. As a result, snapshots of transport barriers can be explicitly computed as trajectories of ordinary differential equations. Using this approach, we locate hyperbolic barriers (generalized stable and unstable manifolds), elliptic barriers (generalized KAM curves) and parabolic barriers (generalized shear jets) in temporally aperiodic flows defined over a finite time interval. Our approach also yields a metric (geodesic deviation) that determines the minimal computational time scale needed for a robust numerical identification of generalized Lagrangian Coherent Structures (LCSs). As we show, an extension of our transport barrier theory to non-Euclidean flow domains, such as a sphere, follows directly. We illustrate our main results by computing key transport barriers in a chaotic advection map, and in a geophysical model flow with chaotic time dependence. ► Transport barriers are sought as least stretching material lines in 2D. ► Approach yields differential equations for barriers. ► Actual barriers are solutions closest to geodesics of the Cauchy–Green metric. ► Results are illustrated on an advection map and an unsteady meandering jet model

Underwater acoustic beam dynamics

Ray- and mode-based theoretical predictions of the spreads of directionally narrow beams are presented and compared to parabolic-equation-based simulations in deep-ocean environments. Both the spatial and temporal spreads of beams are considered. The environments considered consist of a range-independent deep-ocean background sound channel on which a highly structured sound-speed perturbation, associated with either internal waves or homogeneous isotropic single-scale turbulence, is superimposed. The simulation results are shown to be in good agreement with simple theoretical expressions which predict that beam spreading, in both the unperturbed and perturbed environments, is largely controlled by a property of the background sound channel-the ray-based stability parameter alpha or the asymptotically equivalent mode-based waveguide invariant beta. These results are consistent with earlier results showing that wavefield structure and stability are largely controlled by alpha (or beta)

Surface Ocean Mixing Inferred from Different Multisatellite Altimetry Measurements

Abstract Two sea surface height (SSH) anomaly fields distributed by Archiving, Validation, and Interpretation of Satellite Oceanographic (AVISO) Altimetry are evaluated in terms of the effects that they produce on mixing. One SSH anomaly field, tagged REF, is constructed using measurements made by two satellite altimeters; the other SSH anomaly field, tagged UPD, is constructed using measurements made by up to four satellite altimeters. Advection is supplied by surface geostrophic currents derived from the total SSH fields resulting from the addition of these SSH anomaly fields to a mean SSH field. Emphasis is placed on the extraction from the currents of Lagrangian coherent structures (LCSs), which, acting as skeletons for patterns formed by passively advected tracers, entirely control mixing. The diagnostic tool employed to detect LCSs is provided by the computation of finite-time Lyapunov exponents. It is found that currents inferred using UPD SSH anomalies support mixing with characteristics similar to those of mixing produced by currents inferred using REF SSH anomalies. This result mainly follows from the fact that, being more easily characterized as chaotic than turbulent, mixing as sustained by currents derived using UPD SSH anomalies is quite insensitive to spatiotemporal truncations of the advection field