Document Type

Poster

Version Deposited

Not Published

Publication Date

Spring 2024

Conference Name

Rowan Faculty Research Day 2024

Abstract

Currents in the ocean distribute water masses and everything floating in them. To understand how fast the water (and its flotsam) travels and how effectively it mixes, we need to study the flow statistics. There are two types of measurements of ocean currents: Eulerian measurements that look at how the ocean velocities change at a stationary point on the Earth; and Lagrangian measurements that follow a water mass. Dispersion and mixing is generally best captured by Lagrangian measurements. At the submesoscale (~10-1 – 10 km), the observational tool of choice are drifters, or floating buoys, tethered to a drogue that ensures the drifter moves with the water masses at a particular depth. Here we report on the flow statistics from a particularly rich drifter dataset collected in the Western Mediterranean Sea over 3 years, in different seasons and at different depths.

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