Submesoscale evolution of surface drifter triads in the Gulf of Mexico

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Berta, Maristella Griffa, Annalisa Özgökmen, Tamay M. Poje, Andrew
Copyright Year	2016
Abstract	Triangle shape metrics are analyzed to quantify the evolution of submesoscale (100-500 m initial separation) surface drifter triplets released in the northern Gulf of Mexico. The observations are compared to synthetic drifters advected by geostrophic velocity fields derived from satellite altimetry. Observed submesoscale triads evolve rapidly, reaching highly-elongated configurations on timescales of 6 hours to 2 days, in contrast to 6 days or longer for altimetry-derived synthetic data. Estimates of horizontal divergence and strain rate from the drifter triplets indicate the relative importance of divergence in the evolution of triangle shape. Horizontal divergence is scale-dependent, on the order of the local Coriolis parameter, and 2 to 3 times larger for initial 100-m scales compared to initial 500-m scales.
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
DOI	10.1002/2016GL070357
Alternate Webpage(s)	http://yyy.rsmas.miami.edu/users/tamay/ftp-pub/grl2016b.pdf
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL070357
Volume Number	43
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article