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- Title
Unraveling the Non‐Homogeneous Dispersion Processes in Ocean and Coastal Circulations Using a Clustering Approach.
- Authors
Lagomarsino‐Oneto, D.; De Leo, A.; Stocchino, A.; Cucco, A.
- Abstract
Dispersion processes in environmental flows have been traditionally studied under the strong assumption of homogeneous, isotropic and stationary turbulence. To overcome this limitation, we propose a new approach that combines autocorrelation analysis of simulated Lagrangian trajectories together with unsupervised clustering. To test the approach, we consider several dynamic scenarios around a coastal gulf, subject to different forcing, in order to compare our method with other approaches. Lagrangian trajectories forced by the varying coastal circulation exhibited different behaviors, looping and non‐looping paths, and produced a variety of Lagrangian autocorrelation functions. Our approach proves to be able to reveal spatio‐temporal variations in ocean dispersion processes without any a priori knowledge of the character of the trajectories. Clusters based on the autocorrelation functions are associated to different inhomogeneous dispersion processes. Finally, we propose a new stochastic model capable of predicting the different forms of autocorrelations. Plain Language Summary: Ocean and coastal circulations develop in complex domains, especially along the shorelines, and the resulting flow is turbulent in character and inherits the inhomogeneities from the generating forces. When we come to study how these chaotic circulations transport mass, we must expect that the associated dispersion is equally turbulent and high variable in time and space. Observations of particle paths taught us how the trajectories could be complicated, often showing looping behaviors generated by different mechanisms. Despite this complexity, many available studies on ocean and coastal dispersion rely on considering the process as homogeneous (no variations in space) and, applying different spatial and temporal averages, try to grasp the overall picture of the dispersion. We propose a new approach that combines the fundamentals of the dispersion theories with an automated algorithm for clustering. We show that this approach is able to retain the highly inhomogeneous character of the ocean dispersion, at the same time, showing the physical link between the circulations and its ability to transport mass. Key Points: We formulated and applied a clustering algorithm to classify oceanographic dispersion processes starting from Lagrangian trajectoriesA new analytic model for the autocorrelation functions is proposed which well describes loopers and non‐loopers particles behaviorsWe identified three characteristic time scales to distinguish complex inhomogeneous dispersion processes typical of ocean circulations
- Subjects
OCEAN circulation; DISPERSION (Chemistry); SPATIO-temporal variation; INTEGRATED coastal zone management; TURBULENCE; COASTAL zone management; TURBULENT flow
- Publication
Geophysical Research Letters, 2024, Vol 51, Issue 9, p1
- ISSN
0094-8276
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1029/2023GL107900