@article{9b8b66e6c93a438bb640efafaadf5521,
title = "Observations of Near-Surface Current Shear Help Describe Oceanic Oil and Plastic Transport",
abstract = "Plastics and spilled oil pose a critical threat to marine life and human health. As a result of wind forcing and wave motions, theoretical and laboratory studies predict very strong velocity variation with depth over the upper few centimeters of the water column, an observational blind spot in the real ocean. Here we present the first-ever ocean measurements of the current vector profile defined to within 1 cm of the free surface. In our illustrative example, the current magnitude averaged over the upper 1 cm of the ocean is shown to be nearly four times the average over the upper 10 m, even for mild forcing. Our findings indicate that this shear will rapidly separate pieces of marine debris which vary in size or buoyancy, making consideration of these dynamics essential to an improved understanding of the pathways along which marine plastics and oil are transported.",
keywords = "Lagrangian transport, marine plastics, near-surface currents, ocean current shear, spilled oil",
author = "Laxague, {Nathan J.M.} and {\"O}zg{\"o}kmen, {Tamay M.} and Haus, {Brian K.} and Guillaume Novelli and Andrey Shcherbina and Peter Sutherland and Guigand, {C{\'e}dric M.} and Bj{\"o}rn Lund and Sanchit Mehta and Matias Alday and Jeroen Molemaker",
note = "Funding Information: The authors declare no competing financial interests. N.?J.?M.?L. serves without monetary compensation as board member and Director of Science for the nonprofit organization Debris Free Oceans (http://debrisfreeoceans.org). This research was made possible by grant SA1207-GOMRI005 from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative. Data are publicly available through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information and Data Cooperative (GRIIDC) at https://data.gulfresearchinitiative.org/data/R4X265.000:0038 (DOI: 10.7266/N7ZW1JC0). Thanks are given to all those who aided in data collection, particularly Neil Williams and Trina Litchendorf. The authors thank the captain and crew of the R/V F.G. Walton Smith for their hard work and careful execution. Finally, N.?J.?M.?L. thanks Bill Plant for his role in shaping the method by which currents were inferred from the characteristics of gravity-capillary waves. Funding Information: The authors declare no competing financial interests. N. J. M. L. serves without monetary compensation as board member and Director of Science for the nonprofit organization Debris Free Oceans (http://debrisfreeoceans.org). This research was made possible by grant SA1207-GOMRI005 from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative. Data are publicly available through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information and Data Cooperative (GRIIDC) at https://data.gulfresearchinitiative.org/data/R4X265.000:0038 (DOI: 10.7266/N7ZW1JC0). Thanks are given to all those who aided in data collection, particularly Neil Williams and Trina Litchendorf. The authors thank the captain and crew of the R/V F.G. Walton Smith for their hard work and careful execution. Finally, N. J. M. L. thanks Bill Plant for his role in shaping the method by which currents were inferred from the characteristics of gravity-capillary waves.",
year = "2018",
month = jan,
day = "16",
doi = "10.1002/2017GL075891",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "45",
pages = "245--249",
journal = "Geophysical Research Letters",
issn = "0094-8276",
publisher = "American Geophysical Union",
number = "1",
}