Drifter observations of the Mediterranean Sea surface circulation/ Todd A Mauerhan

Download
Author
Mauerhan, Todd A.
Date
2000-03-01Advisor
Poulain, Pierre-Marie
Second Reader
NA
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Since June 2, 1986, several institutions have conducted a variety of drifter studies within the Mediterranean Sea for scientific and operational purposes. The data from these studies include 521 individual drifters and span over 13 years. This thesis examines these data in an effort to better describe the Mediterranean Sea surface circulation. Interpretation of the data is conducted by calculating Eulerian and Lagrangian statistics and evaluating some of the errors they contain. An Eulerian framework is employed that best represents the surface flow throughout the Mediterranean Sea as a combination of a deterministic mean and fluctuations due to temporal and mesoscale variability. The results of the Eulerian statistics are presented as charts of Mean Kinetic Energy (MKE), Eddy Kinetic Energy (EKE), mean flow, and velocity variance. Seasonality is analyzed in regions where temporal and spatial coverage of drifter observations is adequate. Drifter wind slippage errors and array biases are evaluated to possibly determine a valid correction. The Lagrangian statistics: diffusivity, velocity covariance, and integral time and space scales are computed. The Eulerian and Lagrangian surface circulation statistics computed from the drifters are in general similar, but much improved and more accurate, to those presented in earlier works
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Adriatic Sea surface circulation as derived from drifter data between 1990 and 1999
Poulain, Pierre-Marie (Elsevier, 2001);The Adriatic Sea surface circulation for the period 1990-1999 is studied using the data of more than 200 satellite-tracked drifters. The spatial structure snd the tempporal variability of the surface currents, at meso- ... -
A comparison of output from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Parallel Ocean Program (POP) model with surface velocity data from drifting Buoys in the North Atlantic Ocean
Pelton, Jimmy W. (Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School, 2000-03);Surface velocity fields from two configurations of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Parallel Ocean Program (POP) model are compared to surface velocity data from satellite-tracked buoys in the North Atlantic. ... -
Relating Lagrangian and Eulerian horizontal eddy statistics in the surfzone
Spydell, Matthew S.; Feddersen, Falk; Guza, R.T.; MacMahan, Jamie (2014);Concurrent Lagrangian and Eulerian observations of rotational, low-frequency (1024 to 1022 Hz) surfzone eddies are compared. Surface drifters were tracked for a few hours on each of 11 days at two alongshore uniform ...