title: Lagrangian statistics of mesoscale turbulence in a natural environment: The Agulhas return current.
abstract: The properties of mesoscale geophysical turbulence in an oceanic environment have been investigated through the Lagrangian statistics of sea surface temperature measured by a drifting buoy within the Agulhas return current, where strong temperature mixing produces locally sharp temperature gradients. By disentangling the large-scale forcing which affects the small-scale statistics, we found that the statistical properties of intermittency are identical to those obtained from the multifractal prediction in the Lagrangian frame for the velocity trajectory. The results suggest a possible universality of turbulence scaling.
authors.affiliation: CNR-Institute of Atmospheric Pollution Research, CNR-IIA, U.O.S. di Rende, c/o UNICAL-Polifunzionale, 87036 Rende, Italy.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Carbone
authors.affiliation: CNR-Institute of Atmospheric Pollution Research, CNR-IIA, U.O.S. di Rende, c/o UNICAL-Polifunzionale, 87036 Rende, Italy.
authors.forename: Christian N
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Gencarelli
authors.affiliation: CNR-Institute of Atmospheric Pollution Research, CNR-IIA, U.O.S. di Rende, c/o UNICAL-Polifunzionale, 87036 Rende, Italy.
authors.forename: Ian M
authors.initials: IM
authors.lastname: Hedgecock