Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Ocean Convergence And The Dispersion Of Flotsam, Eric A. D'Asaro, Andrey Y. Scherbina, Jody M. Klymak, Jeroen Molemaker, Guillaume Novelli, Cedric M. Guigand, Angelique C. Haza, Brian K. Haus, Edward H. Ryan, Gregg A. Jacobs, Helga S. Huntley, Nathan J. M. Laxague, Shuyi Chen, Falko Judt, James C. Mcwilliams, Roy Barkan, A. D. Kirwan Jr., Andrew C. Poje, Tamay M. Özgökmen

Publications and Research

Floating oil, plastics, and marine organisms are continually redistributed by ocean surface currents. Prediction of their resulting distribution on the surface is a fundamental, long-standing, and practically important problem. The dominant paradigm is dispersion within the dynamical context of a nondivergent flow: objects initially close together will on average spread apart but the area of surface patches of material does not change. Although this paradigm is likely valid at mesoscales, larger than 100 km in horizontal scale, recent theoretical studies of submesoscales (less than ∼10 km) predict strong surface convergences and downwelling associated with horizontal density fronts and cyclonic vortices. …