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Extracting Lagrangian coherent structures in the Kuroshio current system

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Abstract

In this paper, we propose to extract Lagrangian coherent structures (LCSs) based on MADT data to describe the structure of the Kuroshio Current System, and this method helps study the monthly variation in the intensity. By exploiting the improved variational principles, we extract LCSs through a geostrophic velocity vector field derived from the absolute dynamic topography. Specifically, we address hyperbolic LCSs and parabolic LCSs, with the former as the outer bounds of the jet flow and the latter as a more robust depiction of the jet axis. These LCSs delineate the jet with theoretical underpinnings, as opposed to common contours identified in an anecdotal manner. We employ the top 20% most repelling and attracting hyperbolic LCSs to approximate the outer bounds of the Kuroshio Current System, and these structures are apt to enclose the jet. Compared with the results of FTLEs and FSLEs, our results are more reliable. A comparison in the intensity based on the jet axis of months in 2012 demonstrates the effectiveness of our method in extracting LCSs. In situ data, such as drifter tracks and temperature-salinity profiles, are applied to validate the reliability of the axis and outer bounds extracted from the Kuroshio.

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Acknowledgements

The drifter data were obtained from The NOAA/Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory’s Global Drifter Program (ftp://ftp.aoml.noaa.gov/pub/phod/buoydata/). The temperature and salinity data across the KCS were obtained from oceanographic observation data at the Japan Oceanographic Data Center (http://www.jodc.go.jp/jodcweb/index.html).

Funding

This research was jointly supported by the National Key R&D Program of China under Grant 2016YFC1401008, the Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants U1606405 and 61361136001, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 201762005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marine Technology, College of Information Science and Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China

    Fenglin Tian, Qiu He & Ge Chen

  2. Department of Modeling, Simulation, and Visualization Engineering, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, 23529, USA

    ZhanPing Liu

  3. Laboratory for Regional Oceanography and Numerical Modeling, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China

    Fenglin Tian, Qiu He & Ge Chen

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  1. Fenglin Tian
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Correspondence to Ge Chen.

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Tian, F., He, Q., Liu, Z. et al. Extracting Lagrangian coherent structures in the Kuroshio current system. Ocean Dynamics 69, 641–656 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-019-01262-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-019-01262-6

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