Search

A data-driven procedure for identifying the dominant transport barriers in a time-varying flow from limited quantities of Lagrangian data is presented. Our approach partitions state space into coherent pairs, which are sets of initial conditions chosen to minimize the number of trajectories that "leak" from one set to the other under the influence of a stochastic flow field during a pre-specified interval in time. In practice, this partition is computed by solving an optimization problem to obtain a pair of functions whose signs determine set membership. From prior experience with synthetic, "data rich" test problems, and conceptually related methods based on approximations of the Perron-Frobenius operator, we observe that the functions of interest typically appear to be smooth. We exploit this property by using the basis sets associated with spectral or "mesh-free" methods, and as a result, our approach has the potential to more accurately approximate these functions given a fixed amount of data. In practice, this could enable better approximations of the coherent pairs in problems with relatively limited quantities of Lagrangian data, which is usually the case with experimental geophysical data. We apply this method to three examples of increasing complexity: The first is the double gyre, the second is the Bickley Jet, and the third is data from numerically simulated drifters in the Sulu Sea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term “Lagrangian coherent structure” (LCS) is normally used to describe numerically detected structures whose properties are similar to those of stable and unstable manifolds of hyperbolic trajectories. The latter structures are invariant curves, i.e., material curves of fluid that serve as transport barriers. In this paper we use the term LCS to describe a different type of structure whose properties are similar to those of invariant tori in certain classes of two-dimensional incompressible flows. Like stable and unstable manifolds, invariant tori are invariant curves that serve as transport barriers. There are many differences, however, between traditional LCSs and invariant-tori-like LCSs. These differences are discussed with an emphasis on numerical techniques that can be used to identify invariant-tori-like LCSs. Structures of this type are often present in geophysical flows where zonal jets are present. A prime example of an invariant-torus-like LCS is the transport barrier near the core of the polar night jet in the Earth’s lower and middle stratospheres in the austral winter and early spring; this is the barrier that traps ozone-depleted air inside the ozone hole. This example is investigated using both a simple analytically prescribed flow and a velocity field produced by a general circulation model of the Earth’s atmosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]