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Wave mixing rise inferred from Lyapunov exponents

Galan, A; Orfila, A; Simarro, G; Hernández-Carrasco, I; López, C
Environmental fluid mechanics 12, 291-300 (2012)

We study the horizontal surface mixing and the transport induced by waves in a coastal environment. A comparative study is addressed by computing the Lagrangian Coherent Structures, via Finite Size Lyapunov Exponents, that arise in two different numerical settings: with and without wave coupled to currents. In general,we observe that mixing is increased in the area due to waves. Besides, the methodology presented here is tested by deploying a set of eight Lagrangian drifters at different locations. This dynamical approach is shown as a valuable tool to extract information about transport, mixing and residence embedded in the Eulerian time dependent velocity fields obtained from numerical models.