Particle Dispersion in the Western Mediterranean Basin

ABSTRACT

We used the Regional Ocean Modelling System (ROMS) to study the effect of mesoscale coherent structures on the dispersive properties in the western Mediterranean Sea where the mesoscale activity is highly inhomogeneous and anisotropic. We analyzed the transport properties of an ensemble of Lagrangian particles homogenously seeded at the surface and at 500 m depth. We showed the existence of a superdiffusive dispersion regime, which occurs especially in the upper ocean. The behavior of the particle dispersion is the superposition of two distinct regimes of two-dimensional turbulence, associated with the hyperbolic and the elliptic domains.