arXiv subjects

Dimitris Menemenlis

Publications and source records attributed to Dimitris Menemenlis.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Distribution and Transport of Fragmenting Microplastics in a 3D Global Eulerian Model

Fragmentation, the breakage of matter into smaller pieces, is an important mechanism responsible for generating microplastics (MPs). We present the first global three-dimensional Eulerian model that resolves fragmentation alongside MP transport. The evolution of particle size is modeled as a transfer from larger- to smaller-size bins, governed by a fragmentation kinetics framework. Relative to a reference simulation without fragmentation, two distinct effects are identified: (1) the surface concentration field of MPs becomes horizontally dispersed, and (2) MPs sink to depths of 500 m where the reference simulation shows negligible concentration. The vertical shift can be explained by the loss of buoyancy when particle size decreases, which facilitates horizontal sub-mixed layer transport once the particles sink below 100 m depth. Neutrally buoyant particles (with diameter d < 1 um) are continuously produced in the ocean by the fragmentation of larger particles and accumulate in the major oceanic gyres. Ultimately, the concentration of these neutrally buoyant MPs peaks at the gyre centers, a behavior that is not captured by prior models. Furthermore, the globally integrated size spectrum exhibits a steepening power-law slope over time that continues to evolve throughout our 25-year simulation. Comparisons with the AOMI Level-3wm observational dataset demonstrate a meaningful improvement in predictive skill relative to previous models: including fragmentation elevates the spatial correlation between modeled and observed surface concentrations from 45% to 58%.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2026

Effect of Biofouling on Microplastic Transport in a 3-D Global Eulerian Model

Biofouling -- the occupation of microplastic (MP) surfaces by marine microbes -- alters particles' buoyancy and transport, yet its effect on the global distribution of MPs has not been well quantified. We present the first three-dimensional global Eulerian model to fully couple MP transport with biofouling, by augmenting the concentration field with an extra dimension representing the biomass attachment density on MP surfaces. This approach embeds time-dependent particle properties directly into the Eulerian concentration field, overcoming a fundamental challenge of tracking property evolution in grid-based models. Idealized simulations show that biofouling significantly reshapes the vertical distribution of MPs when two conditions are met: the particles must be sufficiently buoyant when they are clean to remain near the sea surface, and the local plankton growth rate must exceed the decay rate. In three-dimensional global simulations, biofouling substantially alters the distribution of large MPs ($\gtrsim 10$ $\mu$m): biofouled particles are transported below the mixed layer to 500 m depth, and the subtropical surface garbage patches become more dispersed with reduced peak concentrations. This dispersion is due to a subsurface transport route, where biofouled particles sink into layers with reversed current and are carried outward from the gyre centers before regaining buoyancy. Small particles ($\lesssim 1$ $\mu$m) remain unaffected as they stay effectively neutrally buoyant even when biofouled. A comparison with a global trawler dataset shows that incorporating biofouling reduces the fraction of outlying model-observation data points from 25\% to 13\%, demonstrating a meaningful improvement in model skill.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2025

Impact of Wave Interference on the Consistency Relations of Internal Gravity Waves near the Ocean Bottom

Consistency relations of internal gravity waves (IGWs) describe ratios of cross-spectral quantities as functions of frequency. It has been a common practice to evaluate the measured or simulated signals (e.g., time series of velocity, density, etc.) against the consistency relations, as a way to determine whether an oceanic field of interest is comprised of IGWs. One such study is carried out in Nelson et al. (JGR Oceans, 125(5), 2020, e2019JC015974), which certifies that the ocean interior field in a numerical simulation of a region southwest of Hawaii is dominated by IGWs, through evaluating the consistency relations derived from time series at a depth of 620 m. However, we find that when the same procedure is applied at greater depths (e.g., 2362 m, 3062 m, and 4987 m), a clear deviation of the simulated signal from the classical consistency relations is observed. In this paper, we identify the reason for the unexpected deviation and show that it is a general phenomenon due to interference of low vertical modes under the reflection by the ocean bottom. We further derive a new set of formulae to characterize the consistency relations of these low modes and validate these formulae using model output.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2024

Distribution of plastics of various sizes and densities in the global ocean from a 3D Eulerian model

We develop a 3D Eulerian model to study the transport and distribution of microplastics in the global ocean. Among other benefits that will be discussed in the paper, one unique feature of our model is that it takes into consideration the effect of properties of particles (size and density, the former for the first time) to their vertical terminal velocity. With ocean current velocity taken from ECCOv4r4, a dataset generated from a data-assimilated MITgcm reanalysis, our model is integrated for 26 years for particles of different properties with their stationary patterns studied. We find that only low-density particles with sufficient size (e.g. density $900kg/m^3$ with size $\gtrsim 10 \mu m$) aggregate in the five subtropical gyres observed in previous studies. In contrast, particles of smaller size ($\sim 1 \mu m$), irrespective of their density, behave like neutrally buoyant particles with a weaker pattern on the surface and a deeper penetration into depth (up to about 1km deep). In addition, we observe seasonal variations of floating particle concentration on the ocean surface, which reasonably agree with the satellite observation by Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) in terms of the phase of the variation. We find that the seasonal variation of the surface particle concentration correlates well with the variation of the mixing layer (ML) depth globally, due to an almost uniform vertical distribution of particles in the ML with total amount of particles conserved.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2024

Dynamic-Mode Decomposition of Geostrophically Balanced Motions from SWOT Altimetry

The decomposition of oceanic flow into its balanced and unbalanced motions carries theoretical and practical significance for the oceanographic community. These two motions have distinct dynamical characteristics and affect the transport of tracers differently from one another. The launch of Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite provides a prime opportunity to diagnose the surface balanced and unbalanced motions on a global scale at an unprecedented spatial resolution. Here, we apply dynamic-mode decomposition (DMD), a linear-algebraic data-driven method, to a tidally-forced numerical simulation and one-day-repeat SWOT observations of sea-surface height (SSH) in the Gulf Stream extension. DMD is able to separate out the spatial modes associated with sub-inertial periods from super-inertial periods. The sub-inertial modes of DMD can be used to extract geostrophically balanced motions from SSH fields, which have an imprint of internal tides and gravity waves. We utilize the statistical relation between relative vorticity and strain rate as the metric to gauge the extraction of geostrophy.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2023

An evaluation of the LLC4320 global ocean simulation based on the submesoscale structure of modeled sea surface temperature fields

We extracted ~2.8M nearly cloud-free 144x144 km^2 cutout images from the 2012-2020 Level-2 VIIRS Sea Surface Temperature (SST) dataset to quantitatively compare with MIT ocean general circulation model outputs, specifically the one year LCC4320 1/48 deg global-ocean simulation starting on November 17, 2011, matched in geography and day-of-year to VIIRS observations. We analyzed these cutouts using an unsupervised probabilistic autoencoder (PAE) to learn the SST structure on ~10-to-80 km scales (submesoscale-to-mesoscale). A key finding is that, in general, the LLC4320 simulation accurately reproduces the observed SST patterns, both globally and regionally. Global structure distribution medians match within 2 sigma for 65% of the ocean, despite a modest, latitude-dependent offset. Regionally, model outputs mimic mesoscale SST pattern variations in VIIRS data revealed by PAE, including subtle features influenced by bathymetry variations. There are however some areas showing significant differences in the distribution of SST patterns: (1) near western boundary currents' separation from the continental margin, (2) in the ACC, particularly in the eastern half of the Indian Ocean, and (3) in an equatorial band equatorward of 15 deg. The discrepancy in (1) results from premature separation of simulated western boundary currents. In (2), the Southern Indian Ocean, the model output predicts more structure than observed, possibly due to mixed layer misrepresentation or energy dissipation and stirring inaccuracies in the simulation. The differences in (3), the equatorial band, may also stem from model errors, potentially arising from the simulation's shortness or insufficient high-frequency/wavenumber atmospheric forcing. While the exact causes of these model-data differences remain uncertain, such comparisons are expected to guide future developments in high-resolution global-ocean simulations.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2023

Probing the Nonlinear Interactions of Supertidal Internal Waves using a High-Resolution Regional Ocean Model

The internal-wave (IW) continuum of a regional ocean model is studied in terms of the vertical spectral kinetic-energy (KE) fluxes and transfers at high vertical wavenumbers. Previous work has shown that this model permits a partial representation of the IW cascade. In this work, vertical spectral KE flux is decomposed into catalyst, source, and destination frequency bands of nonlinear scattering, a framework that allows for the discernment of different types of nonlinear interactions involving both waves and eddies. Energy transfer within the supertidal IW continuum is found to be strongly dependent on horizontal resolution. Specifically, at a horizontal grid spacing of 1/48-degrees, the vast majority of KE in the supertidal continuum arrives there from lower frequency modes through a single nonlinear interaction, while at 1/384-degrees KE transfers within the supertidal IW continuum are comparable in size to KE transfer from lower-frequency modes. Additionally, comparisons are made with existing theoretical and observational work on energy pathways in the IW continuum. Induced diffusion (ID) is found to be associated with a weak forward frequency transfer within the supertidal IW continuum. Spectrally local interactions are found to play an insignificant role within the model evolution. At the same time, ID-like processes involving high vertical-wavenumber near-inertial and tidal waves as well as low-vertical-wavenumber eddy fields are substantial, suggesting that the processes giving rise to a Garrett-Munk-like spectra in the present numerical simulation and perhaps the real ocean may be more varied than in idealized or wave-only frameworks.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2022

Frequency dependence of near-surface oceanic kinetic energy from drifter observations and global high-resolution models

The geographical variability, frequency content, and vertical structure of near-surface oceanic kinetic energy (KE) are important for air-sea interaction, marine ecosystems, operational oceanography, pollutant tracking, and interpreting remotely sensed velocity measurements. Here, KE in high-resolution global simulations (HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model; HYCOM, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology general circulation model; MITgcm), at the sea surface (0 m) and 15 m, are respectively compared with KE from undrogued and drogued surface drifters. Global maps and zonal averages are computed for low-frequency ($<$ 0.5 cpd), near-inertial, diurnal, and semi-diurnal bands. Both models exhibit low-frequency equatorial KE that is low relative to drifter values. HYCOM near-inertial KE is higher than in MITgcm, and closer to drifter values, probably due to more frequently updated atmospheric forcing. HYCOM semi-diurnal KE is lower than in MITgcm, and closer to drifter values, likely due to inclusion of a parameterized topographic internal wave drag. A concurrent tidal harmonic analysis in the diurnal band demonstrates that much of the diurnal flow is non-tidal. We compute a simple proxy of near-surface vertical structure, the ratio of 0 m KE to 0 m KE plus 15 m KE in model outputs, and undrogued KE to undrogued KE plus drogued KE in drifter observations. Over most latitudes and frequency bands, model ratios track the drifter ratios to within error bars. Values of this ratio demonstrate significant vertical structure in all frequency bands except the semidiurnal band. Latitudinal dependence in the ratio is greatest in diurnal and low-frequency bands.

physics.ao-ph↗