A New Mixing Diagnostic and Gulf Oil Spill Movement

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1194607
• Publication Date: 2010-09-03T02:32:00Z
• Authors: Igor Mezić; S. Loire; Vladimir A. Fonob...; P. Hogan
• Keywords: Chaotic mixing

Chaotic advection has served as the paradigm for mixing in fluid flows with simple time dependence. Its skeletal structure is based on analysis of invariant attracting and repelling manifolds flows. Here we develop a finite-time theory two-dimensional incompressible arbitrary dependence introduce new diagnostic it. Besides stretching events around manifolds, this allows us to detect hyperbolic zones. We used forecast spatial location timing oil washing ashore Plaquemines Parish Grand Isle, Louisiana, Pensacola, Florida, May 2010 flow toward Panama City Beach, June 2010.