A Lagrangian Study of Eddies in the Ocean

A brief review of our results on the application of the Lagrangian approach to study observed and simulated eddies in the ocean is presented. It is shown by a few examples of mesoscale vortex structures in the North Western Pacific how to compute and analyze maps of specific Lagrangian indicators in order to study the birth, formation, evolution, metamorphoses and death of ocean eddies. The examples involve two-dimensional eddies observed in satellitederived velocity fields in the deep ocean and three-dimensional ones simulated in a regional numerical model of circulation with a high resolution.