S. V. Prants

Lagrangian study of transport and mixing in a mesoscale eddy street

Abstract We use dynamical systems approach and Lagrangian tools to study surface transport and mixing of water masses in a selected coastal region of the Japan Sea with moving mesoscale eddies associated with the Primorskoye Current. Lagrangian trajectories are computed for a large number of particles in an interpolated velocity field generated by a numerical regional multi-layer eddy-resolving circulation model. We compute finite-time Lyapunov exponents for a comparatively long period of time by the method developed and plot the Lyapunov synoptic map quantifying surface transport and mixing in that region. This map uncovers the striking flow structures along the coast with a mesoscale eddy street and repelling material lines. We propose new Lagrangian diagnostic tools — the time of exit of particles off a selected box, the number of changes of the sign of zonal and meridional velocities — to study transport and mixing by a pair of strongly interacting eddies often visible at sea-surface temperature satellite images in that region. We develop a technique to track evolution of clusters of particles, streaklines and material lines. The Lagrangian tools used allow us to reveal mesoscale eddies and their structure, to track different phases of the coastal flow, to find inhomogeneous character of transport and mixing on mesoscales and submesoscales and to quantify mixing by the values of exit times and the number of times particles wind around the eddy’s center.

Numerical simulation of propagation of radioactive pollution in the ocean from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant

Numerical simulation of the large-scale horizontal mixing and transport of radioactive water from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant (NPP) (141°02′ E, 37°27′ N, east coast of Honshu Island, Japan) and the use of the satellite altimetric velocity field in the northwestern Pacific allowed us to obtain the following results. The patch of radioactive water dumped from the NPP propagated eastwards as jets of an extension of the Kuroshio Current. The discovered phenomenon of trapping the radionuclides by stable and unstable manifolds of local synoptic eddies may be harmful for living organisms. If one assumes that pollution of considerable areas of coastal waters near Honshu Island took place due to fallout of radioactive precipitation with rain, then a part of the radioactive water may be subjected to north-bound advection and is mixing under the impact of stable and unstable manifolds of the triple-eddy system to the north of the NPP. No radionuclide flux from the Tsugaru strait into the Sea of Japan has been found in the surface layer. Nevertheless, there is a small likelihood of their penetration there with a deep counter current and/or due to wind drift.

Detection of barriers to cross-jet Lagrangian transport and its destruction in a meandering flow

Cross-jet transport of passive scalars in a kinematic model of the meandering laminar two-dimensional incompressible flow which is known to produce chaotic mixing is studied. We develop a method for detecting barriers to cross-jet transport in the phase space which is a physical space for our model. Using tools from the theory of nontwist maps, we construct a central invariant curve and compute its characteristics that may serve as good indicators of the existence of a central transport barrier, its strength, and topology. Computing fractal dimension, length, and winding number of that curve in the parameter space, we study in detail the change in its geometry and its destruction that is caused by local bifurcations and a global bifurcation known as reconnection of separatrices of resonances. Scenarios of reconnection are different for odd and even resonances. The central invariant curves with rational and irrational (noble) values of winding numbers are arranged into hierarchical series which are described in terms of continued fractions. Destruction of central transport barrier is illustrated for two ways in the parameter space: when moving along resonant bifurcation curves with rational values of the winding number and along curves with noble (irrational) values.

Lagrangian analysis of mixing and transport of water masses in the marine bays

The Lagrangian approach to studying the mixing and transport of a passive admixture in marine bays and gulfs based on the methods of a theory of dynamic systems is developed. This approach is employed to investigate the lateral mixing and transport of waters in the Peter the Great Bay, Japan Sea, using a velocity field of the predictive numerical hydrodynamic circulation model of a synoptic scale. It is shown that the Lagrangian characteristics, such as the maximum accumulated Lyapunov exponent, the time of particle stay in the bay, particle relative displacements, and the number of cyclonic and anticyclonic rotations, allow us to describe the movement of water masses, the character of mixing, and chaos in the Bay. In integrating the advection equations forward and backward in time, maps showing a number of particle arrivals to different regions of the Bay make it possible to establish corridors through which particles leave and enter the Bay.

Effect of dynamical traps on chaotic transport in a meandering jet flow

We continue our study of chaotic mixing and transport of passive particles in a simple model of a meandering jet flow [Prants et al., Chaos 16, 033117 (2006)]. In the present paper we study and phenomenologically explain a connection between dynamical, topological, and statistical properties of chaotic mixing and transport in the model flow in terms of dynamical traps, singular zones in the phase space where particles may spend an arbitrarily long but finite time [Zaslavsky, Phys. D 168-169, 292 (2002)]. The transport of passive particles is described in terms of lengths and durations of zonal flights which are events between two successive changes of sign of zonal velocity. Some peculiarities of the respective probability density functions for short flights are proven to be caused by the so-called rotational-island traps connected with the boundaries of resonant islands (including the vortex cores) filled with the particles moving in the same frame and the saddle traps connected with periodic saddle trajectories. Whereas, the statistics of long flights can be explained by the influence of the so-called ballistic-islands traps filled with the particles moving from a frame to frame.

Chaotic mixing and transport in a meandering jet flow.

Mixing and transport of passive particles are studied in a simple kinematic model of a meandering jet flow motivated by the problem of lateral mixing and transport in the Gulf Stream. We briefly discuss a model stream function, Hamiltonian advection equations, stationary points, and bifurcations. The phase portrait of the chosen model flow in the moving reference frame consists of a central eastward jet, chains of northern and southern circulations, and peripheral westward currents. Under a periodic perturbation of the meanders amplitude, the topology of the phase space is complicated by the presence of chaotic layers and chains of oscillatory and ballistic islands with sticky boundaries immersed into a stochastic sea. Typical chaotic trajectories of advected particles are shown to demonstrate a complicated behavior with long flights in both the directions of motion intermittent with trapping in the circulation cells being stuck to the boundaries of vortex cores and resonant islands. Transport is asymmetric in the sense that mixing between the circulations and the peripheral currents is, in general, different from mixing between the circulations and the jet. The transport properties are characterized by probability distribution functions (PDFs) of durations and lengths of flights. Both the PDFs exhibit at their tails power-law decay with different values of exponents.

Chaotic scattering, transport, and fractals in a simple hydrodynamic flow

Advection of passive tracers in an unsteady hydrodynamic flow consisting of a background stream and a vortex is analyzed as an example of chaotic particle scattering and transport. A numerical analysis reveals a nonattracting chaotic invariant set Λ that determines the scattering and trapping of particles from the incoming flow. The set has a hyperbolic component consisting of unstable periodic and aperiodic orbits and a nonhyperbolic component represented by marginally unstable orbits in the particle-trapping regions in the neighborhoods of the boundaries of outer invariant tori. The geometry and topology of chaotic scattering are examined. It is shown that both the trapping time for particles in the mixing region and the number of times their trajectories wind around the vortex have hierarchical fractal structure as functions of the initial particle coordinates. The hierarchy is found to have certain properties due to an infinite number of intersections of the stable manifold in Λ with a material line consisting of particles from the incoming flow. Scattering functions are singular on a Cantor set of initial conditions, and this property must manifest itself by strong fluctuations of quantities measured in experiments.

Ray chaos and ray clustering in an ocean waveguide

We consider ray propagation in a waveguide with a designed sound-speed profile perturbed by a range-dependent perturbation caused by internal waves in deep ocean environments. The Hamiltonian formalism in terms of the action and angle variables is applied to study nonlinear ray dynamics with two sound-channel models and three perturbation models: a single-mode perturbation, a randomlike sound-speed fluctuations, and a mixed perturbation. In the integrable limit without any perturbation, we derive analytical expressions for ray arrival times and timefronts at a given range, the main measurable characteristics in field experiments in the ocean. In the presence of a single-mode perturbation, ray chaos is shown to arise as a result of overlapping nonlinear ray-medium resonances. Poincare maps, plots of variations of the action per ray cycle length, and plots with rays escaping the channel reveal inhomogeneous structure of the underlying phase space with remarkable zones of stability where stable coherent ray clusters may be formed. We demonstrate the possibility of determining the wavelength of the perturbation mode from the arrival time distribution under conditions of ray chaos. It is surprising that coherent ray clusters, consisting of fans of rays which propagate over long ranges with close dynamical characteristics, can survive under a randomlike multiplicative perturbation modelling sound-speed fluctuations caused by a wide spectrum of internal waves.

Role of mesoscale eddies in transport of Fukushima-derived cesium isotopes in the ocean

We present the results of in-situ measurements of

Chaos and flights in the atom-photon interaction in cavity QED

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