CoAuthors

Juan Cruz Bonel (IFAECI, Argentina); Martín Saraceno (CIMA, Argentina); Christophe Guinet (CEBC, France)

Topological tools from nonlinear dynamics are used to assess enduring near-surface Lagrangian aspects of the Malvinas Current. The procedure, known as BraMAH (Branched Manifold Analysis through Homologies) is a finite-dimensional and finite-time technique that enables distinguishing and classifying the different nonlinear processes at work in time series datasets (Charó et al, 2021, 2020, 2019, Sciamarella & Mindlin, 2001, 1999). Consistent results are obtained comparing datasets generated with simplified models proposed to understand chaotic advection in the ocean (Rypina et al, 2007; Koshel et al, 2006), with satellite-tracked drifter trajectories and trajectories computed from a multiyear record of velocities derived from satellite altimetry data (Beron-Vera et al, 2020). A family of topologically distinct dynamics is observed in the weakly communicating flow regions that were previously detected using metric -i.e. non topological- tools. This is the first time that the time-varying distributions of single-topology regions are obtained from altimetry data; each region being identified with a particular class of finite-time dynamics.