Lagrangian and inertial transport in atmospheric and chaotic flows

Resumo

This thesis presents a compendium of publications related to transport studies analyzed from the perspective of dynamical systems. The goal is to address the role that particle properties and the flow have on the organization of trajectories and hence the transport. To observe how transport is structured, we focus on the most widely used method: the Finite Time Lyapunov Exponents. These exponents measure the separation rate of the particles starting from nearby initial positions, estimating the hyperbolicity of the trajectories. This method allows us to make a first approach to the problem, obtaining the borders or frontiers between regions with different dynamics given a simplified vision of transport. The transport structures related with this method, are called Lagrangian Coherent Structures. In the first study, the Lagrangian transport in the troposphere was analyzed. The atmospheric flow is characterized by being turbulent in a continuum of spatiotemporal scales. Within these scales, it was observed that there are structures such as the Atmospheric Rivers that maintain a spatial and temporal coherence of the order of days acting as organizers of water vapor transport and therefore dominating the dynamics of the region at the moment they occur. At the same time, the persistence and repetition of these structures, together with all the other tropospheric structures, introduce mixing into the atmosphere. Those areas in middle latitudes where these structures develop have higher mixing variability. This is mainly due to seasonal changes. However, those regions with less variability, such as the equatorial zones, the mixing and its variability on day scales, are mainly associated with inter-annual variability events such as El Niño or La Niña or the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). In addition, the mixing information of the air masses from a climatic point of view, was used as a predictor of rainfall for the Iberian region. The Atlantic margin is characterized by an intense activity of Atmospheric Rivers, being one of the main causes of precipitation. However, the problem of determining the activity of rainfall months in advance is complex, for this reason the use of new variables as potential predictors is required. It has been obtained that the mixing, in the Atlantic region, is related to the precipitation on the Iberian Peninsula. Addressing on the second study, we focus on the influence of forces on the particles motion so the resolution of motion equation is required to obtain the trajectories they describe. The particles are modeled as small spheres with mass, but the fact that their movement is decoupled from the flow makes their trajectories depend initially on other properties such as the initial velocity. It was observed that this dependence, for certain flows, is even higher than small perturbations in its position, mainly in those regions where there is a high spatial variability of the fluid such as regions with shear. The same happens for bubbles where flotation effects appear. They are very sensitive to the inertial effects and especially to the disturbances of the radius as well as the effects of merging with other bubbles, being especially relevant in the initial instants of the movement. In addition, it has been observed that particles properties and their collective motion play a key role in the synchronization of finite-size chemical oscillators. To experimentally support some of the aforementioned behaviors, experimental data are needed to measure the trajectories of the particles. Particle Tracking Velocimetry (PTV) methods, track the trajectories of individual particles in three-dimensional space. In the last part of this thesis, we present an experimental setup and some preliminary results of trajectories of the particles mentioned above in a high turbulent flow.