Comparison of a satellite-derived high-resolution current map and numerical modelling of submesoscale eddies in a shallow-water domain

Delandmeter, Philippe;Chen W.;Deleersnijder, Eric;Lambrechts, Jonathan;Wolanski, Eric;et.al.
(2016) 48th International Liege Colloquium on Ocean Dynamics Submesoscale Processes: Mechanisms, Implications and new Frontiers — Location: Liège (23.May.2016)

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Abstract
Interaction of flow with the reefs and islands that lie within the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) area of northeastern Australia create a rich submesoscale field of dipolar vortices, unsteady wakes, lee eddies, and free shear layers, all of which impact both the aggregation and dispersion of coral spawn, cyanobacteria and pollutants. A unique and detailed view of the submesoscale variability in a part of the GBR having a number of small islands has been obtained by using a ‘stereo’ pair of 0.5 m-resolution visible-band satellite images that were acquired just 54 seconds apart. These were analysed using an optical-flow technique to extract the near-surface current, vorticity, and divergence fields. To help understand features in the imagery and in the image-derived flow fields, an unstructured-mesh, finite-element model, SLIM (www.climate.be/slim), was used to simulate conditions at the time imagery was collected. While aspects of the simulated flow field are in agreement with the observations, there are several unanticipated differences. These discrepancies are not expected to be a consequence of the mesh resolution, and so an analysis was made of the model sensitivity to formulations of bottom drag and eddy viscosity. Eventually, the way the model treats the separation flow was examined.
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Delandmeter, P., Chen W., Deleersnijder, E., Lambrechts, J., Legat, V., Remacle, J.-F., Marmorino, G., & Wolanski, E. (2016). Comparison of a satellite-derived high-resolution current map and numerical modelling of submesoscale eddies in a shallow-water domain. 48th International Liege Colloquium on Ocean Dynamics Submesoscale Processes: Mechanisms, Implications and new Frontiers, Liège. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/239973