Lagrangian Measurements in the San Matias Gulf, Argentina

SARACENO, MARTÍN; SAAD, JUAN; WILLIAMS, GABRIELA; BROCHADO, LUIS; BERON VERA, F.; SVENDSEN, GUILLERMO; GONZÁLEZ, RAÚL; AUBONE, N.; OLASCOAGA, J. ; TONINI, MARIANO; SORIA, MARIANO

Montreal

Workshop; 27th IUGG General Assembly 2019; 2019

International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG)

An experiment was performed to make lagrangian measurements of marine currents using a prototype of a satellital drifter in San Matías Gulf. During summer 2019 five instruments were deployed and satellite tracks followed. The main results were: - The trajectories suggest that the mean flow follows contours of constant potential vorticity- Buoys show that surface currents are dominated by the semi-diurnal component of the tide and by the inertial frequency- Neglecting the spatial variation, the ellipses of the main harmonics of the tidal currents are comparable with those found with eulerian measurements The trajectories allow to reveal particular characteristics of the circulation of SMG: a jet tilt was identified and described using satellite images, being a possible explanation related to wind direction; coastal recirculation was detected, showing strong implications for ecosystems dynamic; the trajectories compare very well with the climatological outputs of a high resolutionmodel.