The animation shows the life cycle of a CARibbean Anticyclone (CARA) that traverses the Yucatan Channel as coherent material vortex. The CARA was identified using geodesic eddy detection (Haller and Beron-Vera 2013, 2104) as implemented by Daniel Karrasch in the CoherentStructures.jl Julia toolbox. We are currently investigating the role os CARA in shaping the state of the Loop Current as part of the Understanding Gulf Ocean Systems (UGOS) Initiative of the National Academies.
The animation shows the genesis, evolution, and apocalypse of a Loop Current Ring in the Gulf of Mexico as extracted from satellite altimetry using geodesic vortex detection. Geodesic vortices are material vortices with boundaries that withstand stretching, in stark contrast with the boundary of vortices identified with regions instantaneously filled with streamlines of the altimetric sea-surface height field (Andrade-Canto et al. 2020).
