Particle trajectories and simple models of transport in coherent vortices

The particle trajectories and transport effects of coherent vortices are computed and a number of advection and diffusion experiments using a time-dependent dynamical ring model are analyzed. Several features of the tracer distributions in the numerical solutions are similar to features noted in sea surface temperature images of Gulf Stream rings and are discussed from the point of view of the model. Comparisons between tracer distributions computed using the dynamic ring model and several purely kinematic ring representations demonstrate that most of the important features of ring transport are not altered by slow dynamical evolution. Loss rates from the ring trapped zone are also estimated, which permits calculation of cross-Gulf Stream chemical and biological fluxes due to ring formation. We demonstrate that the salinoty flux to the Slope Water caused by rings is comparable to that caused by the atmosphere.The transport of passive scalars produced by a series of rings moving through a channel (modeling the Slope Water region between the Shelf and the Gulf Stream) is computed. It is found that transport in the along-channel direction is enhanced by the presence of rings and is characterized by Nusselt numbers of 0(30–40). Cross-channel fluxes, while enhanced, are somewhat less affected by rings, and are generally characterized by Nusselt numbers < 0(10). The combined effect of rings on the Slope is seen to make it an anisotropic medium, with along-channel transport one to two orders of magnitude more efficient than cross-channel transport. The implications with respect to the Slope are discussed.