Sentences with phrase «lagrangian coherent structures»

The team thinks Lagrangian coherent structures could provide a better way of identifying and classifying atmospheric rivers.

«Given that atmospheric rivers over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans appear as coherent filaments of water vapor lasting for up to a week, and that Lagrangian coherent structures have turned out to explain the formation of other geophysical flows, we wondered whether Lagrangian coherent structures might somehow play a role in the formation of atmospheric rivers,» said study coauthor Vicente Perez - Munuzuri, a physicist at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Using publically available data about wind speed and water vapor flux from real - world atmospheric rivers over the Atlantic, the scientists created a computer model consisting of thousands of moving virtual air particles and found a close match between the complex swirls — the Lagrangian coherent structures — made by the air particles and the patterns made by the real atmospheric rivers.

«The Lagrangian coherent structures serve as a kind of temporary scaffolding around which an atmospheric river can grow and lengthen,» Perez - Munuzuri said.

These so - called Lagrangian coherent structures have been observed shaping other natural phenomena, including volcanic ash clouds and plankton blooms.

«Our findings further support the usefulness of Lagrangian coherent structures to decompose unsteady fluid flows into dynamically different regions.»

These surfaces are called Lagrangian coherent structures (LCSs).