References

NPG

Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics

NPG

Nonlin. Processes Geophys.

1607-7946

Copernicus Publications

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/npg-21-677-2014

Lagrangian descriptors and the assessment of the predictive capacity of oceanic data sets

Mendoza

¹ Mancho

A. M.

² Wiggins

ETSI Navales, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Av. Arco de la Victoria 4, 28040 Madrid, Spain

Instituto de Ciencias Matemáticas, CSIC-UAM-UC3M-UCM, C/ Nicolás Cabrera 15, Campus Cantoblanco UAM, 28049 Madrid, Spain

School of Mathematics, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TW, UK

18 06 2014

21 3 677 689

2014

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This article is available from https://npg.copernicus.org/articles/21/677/2014/npg-21-677-2014.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://npg.copernicus.org/articles/21/677/2014/npg-21-677-2014.pdf

We use a recently developed Lagrangian transport tool, <i>Lagrangian descriptors</i>, to compare the transport properties of data distributed by AVISO and numerical simulations obtained from the HYCOM model in the Yucatán–Florida current system. Our data correspond to the months from June through August 2010. Structures obtained from HYCOM are noisier than those from AVISO; however, both AVISO and HYCOM succeed in identifying Lagrangian structures that influence the paths of drifters, such as eddies, currents, lobes, etc. We find evidence in which AVISO gives the positions of important hyperbolic trajectories in a manner that is inconsistent with the trajectories of the drifters, while for the same examples HYCOM succeeds to this end.

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