Lagrangian Tools to Monitor Chaotic Transport and Mixing in the Ocean

Abstract

We apply the Lagrangian approach to study surface transport and mixing in the ocean. New tools have been developed to track the motion of water masses, their origin and fate and to quantify transport and mixing. To illustrate the methods used we compute the Lagrangian synoptic maps a comparatively small marine bay, the Peter the Great Bay in the Japan Sea near Vladivostok city (Russia), and in a comparatively large region in the North Pacific, the Kuroshio Extension system. In the first case we use velocity data from a Japan Sea circulation numerical model and in the second one the velocity data are derived from satellite altimeter measurements of anomalies of the sea height distributed by AVISO.