How Does Drifter Position Uncertainty Affect Ocean Dispersion Estimates

摘要: To develop methodologies to maximize the information content of Lagrangian data subject position errors, synthetic trajectories produced by both a large-eddy simulation (LES) an idealized submesoscale flow field and high-resolution Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model North Atlantic circulation are analyzed. Scale-dependent measures two-particle dispersion, mainly finitescale Lyapunov exponent [FSLE; l(d)], used as metrics determine effects uncertainty on observed dispersion regimes. It is found that cumulative effect l(d) may extend scales 20‐60 times larger than uncertainty. The range separation affected given level depends upon slope true FSLE distribution at scale Low-pass filtering or temporal subsampling reduces effective noise amplitudes smallest spatial expense limiting maximum computable value l. An adaptive time-filtering approach proposed means extracting signal from with uncertain measurements. Application this process drifters Argos positioning system released during LatMix: Studies Submesoscale Stirring Mixing (2011) indicates measurement dominates regime inl for scalesd ,3km. expressionis provided toestimatepositionerrors canbeafforded dependingontheexpected l in regime.