Milena Veneziani

Oceanic Turbulence and Stochastic Models from Subsurface Lagrangian Data for the Northwest Atlantic Ocean

The historical dataset provided by 700-m acoustically tracked floats is analyzed in different regions of the northwestern Atlantic Ocean. The goal is to characterize the main properties of the mesoscale turbulence and to explore Lagrangian stochastic models capable of describing them. The data analysis is carried out mostly in terms of Lagrangian velocity autocovariance and cross-covariance functions. In the Gulf Stream recirculation and extension regions, the autocovariances and cross covariances exhibit significant oscillatory patterns on time scales comparable to the Lagrangian decorrelation time scale. They are indicative of sub- and superdiffusive behaviors in the mean spreading of water particles. The main result of the paper is that the properties of Lagrangian data can be considered as a superposition of two different regimes associated with looping and nonlooping trajectories and that both regimes can be parameterized using a simple first-order Lagrangian stochastic model with spin parameter V. The spin couples the zonal and meridional velocity components, reproducing the effects of rotating coherent structures such as vortices and mesoscale eddies. It is considered as a random parameter whose probability distribution is approximately bimodal, reflecting the distribution of loopers (finite V) and nonloopers (zero V). This simple model is found to be very effective in reproducing the statistical properties of the data.

Aegean Surface Circulation from a Satellite-Tracked Drifter Array

A pilot experiment using an array of 45 drifters to explore the circulation in the north and central Aegean Sea is described. The global positioning system drifters with holey-sock drogues provide positions every hour with data recovery through the Argos system. The drifters were launched in four separate deployments over a 1-yr period. The resulting trajectories confirm the existence of a current around the rim of the basin consistent with a buoyancy plume created by the outflow of Black Sea waters through the Dardanelles (Strait of Canakkale in Turkish). The degree to which this is augmented by an Ekman response to the dominant northerly winds is not obvious in the dataset owing to mesoscale dynamics that obscure the existence of any westward Ekman flow. The mesoscale eddy field involves anticylonic eddies in the current around the rim of the basin consistent with eddies with low-salinity-water cores. Cyclones are also seen, with the most prominent forming over deep regions in the basin topography. The array also documents the interaction of the currents with the straits through the Sporades and Cyclades island groups. These interactions are complicated by the nature of the mesoscale flow and in some trajectories suggest a Bernouilli acceleration in straits; in others the flow through the island groups appears to be more diffusive and involves deceleration and eddy motions. The rapid sampling by the drifters reveals an extremely nonlinear submesoscale eddy field in the basin with length scales less than 4 km and Rossby numbers of order 1. A better understanding of the dynamics of these features is of importance for understanding the circulation of the basin.

A Lagrangian Analysis of the Indian-Atlantic Interocean Exchange in a Regional Model

We present a new numerical Lagrangian technique based on the coupling of transport computation with spin analysis of trajectories. This method was applied to results from a high-resolution numerical model of the oceanic region around South Africa. We estimated an Indian-Atlantic leakage of about 14 Sv. In the western Cape Basin, approximately 30% of this transport is due to trapping eddies with a ratio between cyclones and anticyclones transport of 1.3. These findings are briefly discussed with respect to recent observations of the highly nonlinear regime found in this area of the Cape Basin.

Lagrangian spin parameter and coherent structures from trajectories released in a high-resolution ocean model

A study of the mesoscale eddy field in the presence of coherent vortices, by means of Lagrangian trajectories released in a high-resolution ocean model, is presented in this paper. The investigation confirms previous results drawn from real float data statistics (Veneziani et al., 2004) that the eddy field characteristics are due to the superposition of two distinct regimes associated with strong coherent vortices and with a typically more quiescent background eddy flow. The former gives rise to looping trajectories characterized by subdiffusivity properties due to the trapping effect of the vortices, while the latter produces nonlooping floats characterized by simple diffusivity features. Moreover, the present work completes the study by Veneziani et al. (2004) in regard to the nature of the spin parameter , which was used in the Lagrangian stochastic model that best described the observed eddy statistics. The main result is that the spin obtained from the looping trajectories not only represents a good estimate of the relative vorticity of the vortex core in which the loopers are embedded, but it is also able to follow the vortex temporal evolution. The Lagrangian parameter is then directly connected to the underlying Eulerian structure and could be used as a proxy for the relative vorticity field of coherent vortices.

Parameterizations of Lagrangian spin statistics and particle dispersion in the presence of coherent vortices

Coherent vortices are known to play an important role in transport processes of ideal flows such as two-dimensional and quasi-geostrophic turbulent flows. In this paper, their effect on eddy dispersion and diffusivity is studied in a realistic oceanic flow, using synthetic Lagrangian data simulated within a high-resolution ocean general circulation model in the Gulf Stream recirculation region. The possibility of using a Lagrangian Stochastic Model (LSM) with nonzero mean spin statistic, ,t o parameterize the observed characteristics is considered. The probability distribution of the parameter (which is representative of the looping behavior of trajectories embedded inside the coherent vortices) is also studied. The main result is that the LSM with a tri-modal -distribution is able to reproduce the eddy diffusivity and dispersion characteristics, especially at short and intermediate time scales. Particularly well predicted are the effects of the coherent vortices, which are the enhanced spreading of particles at short times due to the high eddy energy of the vortices and the inhibited diffusion at intermediate times due to the vortex trapping mechanisms. The LSM parameterization of eddy dispersion is shown to be more appropriate than the commonly used asymptotic eddy-diffusivity approximation. More complex than tri-modal distributions of mean spin are also considered in the LSM, and they are found to produce only slight changes in the predictions of eddy statistics and dispersion.

Historical Drifter Data and Statistical Prediction of Particle Motion: A Case Study in the Central Adriatic Sea

Abstract In this paper, a method to analyze historical surface drifter data is presented that is aimed at investigating particle evolution as a function of initial conditions. Maps of drifter concentration at different times are built and interpreted as maps of the probability of finding a particle at a given time in the neighborhood of a given point in the domain. A case study is considered in a coastal area of the middle Adriatic Sea (a subbasin of the Mediterranean Sea) around the Gargano Cape, which is the focus of a newly planned experiment, the Dynamics of the Adriatic in Real Time (DART). A specific application is considered that seeks to improve the DART Lagrangian sampling planning. The results indicate that the analysis of historical drifters can provide very valuable information on statistical particle prediction to be used in experiment design. In the DART region, particle dynamics appear mostly controlled by the upstream properties of the boundary current as well as by the presence of a stagn...

Barrier Layers in the Tropical South Atlantic: Mean Dynamics and Submesoscale Effects*

AbstractBarrier layers are generated when the surface mixed layer is shallower than the layer where temperature is well mixed, in geographical regions where salinity plays a key role in setting up upper-ocean density stratification. In the tropical oceans, thick barrier layers are also found in a latitude range where spiraling trajectories from surface in situ drifters suggest the presence of predominantly cyclonic submesoscale-like vortices. The authors explore these dynamical processes and their interplay in the present paper, focusing on the tropical South Atlantic Ocean and using a high-resolution modeling approach. The objective is threefold: to investigate the mean dynamics contributing to barrier-layer formation in this region, to study the distribution and seasonality of submesoscale features, and to verify whether and how the submesoscale impacts barrier-layer thickness. The model used is the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) in its Adaptive Grid Refinement in Fortran (AGRIF) online-nested co...