Common turbulent signature in sea surface temperature and chlorophyll maps

• Published in: Geophysical research letters Vol. 34; no. 23; pp. L23602 - n/a
• Main Authors: Nieves, V., Llebot, C., Turiel, A., Solé, J., García-Ladona, E., Estrada, M., Blasco, D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Geophysical Union 16.12.2007; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: currents and energy transfers in the oceans; Earth sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Eddies and mesoscale processes; Exact sciences and technology; Fractals and multifractals; Marine; microcanonical multifractal formalism; Nonlinear Geophysics; Ocean observing systems; Oceanography; Physical; Self-organization; temperature and chlorophyll satellite images; Turbulence; microcanonical multifractal formalism; currents and energy transfers in the oceans; temperature and chlorophyll satellite images; advection; maps; flow lines; Space remote sensing; chlorophyll; satellite measurements; Satellite observation; concentration; Sea surface temperature; transport; cascades; dynamics; IMAGE satellite; Vortex; Two dimensional turbulence; Microcanonical ensemble; energy
• ISSN: 0094-8276; 1944-8007
• DOI: 10.1029/2007GL030823

Oceans and 2D turbulence present similar characteristics, as for instance the dominant role played by eddies in energy and matter transport. However, providing a complete justification of this analogy is difficult, as it requires knowledge of the ocean's dynamic state at different instants and over large scales. Recently, new techniques coming from the Microcanonical Multifractal Formalism have made it possible to infer the streamlines from the analysis of satellite images of some scalar variables. In this paper, we will show that this information is enough to characterize the scaling properties of the energy cascade, which is manifested as a multifractal signature; further, the multifractal signature is obtained at each location in a local basis. Different scalars obtained from satellite measurements such as Sea Surface Temperature or Surface Chlorophyll Concentration present essentially the same multifractal structure, which is interpreted as a consequence of the pervading character of the turbulent advection at the scales of observation.