The correlation between surface drifters and coherent structures based on high-frequency radar data in Monterey Bay

This paper investigates the transport structure of surface currents around the Monterey Bay, CA region. Currents measured by radar stations around Monterey Bay indicate the presence of strong, spatial and temporal, nonlinear patterns. To understand the geometry of the flow in the bay, Lagrangian coherent structures (LCS) are computed. These structures are mobile separatrices that divide the flow into regions of qualitatively different dynamics. They provide direct information about the flow structure but are geometrically simpler than particle trajectories themselves. The LCS patterns were used to reveal the mesoscale flow conditions observed during the 2003 Autonomous Ocean Sampling Network (AOSN-II) experiment. Drifter paths from the AOSN experiment were compared to the patterns induced by the LCS computed from high-frequency radar data. We verify that the fate of the drifters can be better characterized based on the LCS than direct interpretation of the current data. This property can be exploited to optimize drifter deployment. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.