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Geodesic indentification of mesoscale eddies

Francisco J. Beron-Vera, Y. Wang, M.J. Olascoaga, G. Haller and G.J. Goni
RSMAS, University of Miami
(Abstract received 05/12/2012 for session D)
ABSTRACT

Building on Haller and Beron-Vera's (2012) geodesic theory of transport barriers, we develop a method for the objective (i.e., frame-independent) identification of eddy boundaries in incompressible two-dimensional flows. The method, which we call geodesic method, is applied to altimetry data in a region of the South Atlantic that is known to be traversed by mesoscale eddies pinched-off from the Agulhas Current. We show that the method outperforms the most widely used methods, such as those based on the inspection of sea surface height contours, and the application of Eulerian and Lagrangian versions of the Okubo--Weiss criterion.