Vortex Interactions Subjected to Deformation Flows: A Review

Abstract

Deformation flows are flows incorporating shear, strain and rotational components. These flows are ubiquitous in the geophysical flows, such as the ocean and atmosphere. They appear near almost any salience, such as isolated coherent structures (vortices and jets), various fixed obstacles (submerged obstacles, continental boundaries). Fluid structures subject to such deformation flows may exhibit drastic changes in motion. In this review paper, we focus on the motion of a small number of coherent vortices embedded in deformation flows. Problems involving isolated one and two vortices are addressed. When considering a single-vortex problem, the main focus is on the evolution of the vortex boundary and its influence on the passive scalar motion. Two vortex problems are addressed with the use of point vortex models, and the resulting stirring patterns of neighbouring scalars are studied by a combination of numerical and analytical methods from the dynamical system theory. Many dynamical effects are reviewed with emphasis on the emergence of chaotic motion of the vortex phase trajectories and the scalars in their immediate vicinity.

Floating tracer clustering in divergent random flows modulated by an unsteady mesoscale ocean field

“…Then, the mesoscale advection is induced by mostly transient synoptic eddies (Gryanik et al 2006, Chelton et al 2007, McWilliams 2013, Reznik 2010, Reznik and Kizner 2010, Chelton et al 2011, Sokolovskiy and Verron 2014, Koshel et al 2019a, which are hard to resolve in the comprehensive general circulation models, and whose dynamics is often nonlinearly complicated and difficult to be parameterised. Further downscale there are largely unresolved submesoscale motions (Berti et al 2011, Schroeder et al 2012, Zhong and Bracco 2013, Berta et al 2016, McWilliams 2016, Haza et al 2016, Ohlmann et al 2019, increasingly more researched due to the improved observational skills and spatial resolution of the circulation models.…”