The OCEANTECH project

OCEANTECH is a project funded by the Spanish Higher Research Council (CSIC) under the Intramural Frontier Projects program. This program aims at supporting highly innovative, unconventional, and transdisciplinar projects developed by several CSIC institutes from different Research Areas. It started on 1st January 2007 and will run for two years.

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The OCEANTECH objectives

The aim of the Project is to explore the applicability of techniques coming from the Nonlinear Physics and Dynamical Systems fields - Multifractal and Lagrangian methods - in the operational treatment and management of natural resources, using as imput ocean measurements mainly taken from satellites.

More specifically, The OCEANTECH project addresses the following objectives:

• Scientific Objectives:
  • Turbulent cascade and hierarchy in the organization of oceanic flow. Statistical properties of ocean turbulence will be related to features of the multiscale (multifractal) spectrum of observable fields (temperature, chlorophyll, ...).
  • Advection and Transport. By using the tools of lobe dynamics, and in general of nonlinear dynamics (e.g. Lyapunov exponents), characterization of mixing zones and routes to transport in terms of hyperbolic points and stable and unstable manifolds will be achieved.
  • Mixing, mesosale structures, and their impact on plankton dynamics will be considered, with particular emphasis on the correlations between biological activity, horizontal stirring, and the presence of coherent structures (vortices, jets, ...).
• Technological Objectives:
  • Estimation of ocean dynamical variables from satellite images: Velocity fields, turbulent diffusivities, biomass transport, and other quantities will be computed from satellite imaginery.
  • Construction of the OCEANTECH prototype: a software environment for operational management implementing the techniques developed above.

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OCEANTECH partners

OCEANTECH is developed by a collaboration among three CSIC teams:

ICM

The Institute for Marine Sciences, ICM, at Barcelona, a part of the CSIC Mediterranean Marine and Environmental Centre (CMIMA).

IFISC

The Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems, IFISC, at Palma de Mallorca, previously a part (the Cross-Disciplinary Physics Department) of IMEDEA.

IMAFF

The Institute for Mathematics and Fundamental Physics (IMAFF), at Madrid, participates through members of the Mathematics Department.

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