Pérez-Brunius Paula

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Last Name
Pérez-Brunius
First Name
Paula
ORCID
0000-0003-1086-2870

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  • Article
    A Deep Water Dispersion Experiment in the Gulf of Mexico
    (American Geophysical Union, 2021-09-18) Meunier, Thomas ; Pérez-Brunius, Paula ; Rodríguez Outerelo, Javier ; García-Carrillo, Paula ; Ronquillo-Mendez, Argelia ; Furey, Heather H. ; Ramsey, Andree L. ; Bower, Amy S.
    The Deep Water Horizon oil spill dramatically impacted the Gulf of Mexico from the seafloor to the surface. While dispersion of contaminants at the surface has been extensively studied, little is known about deep water dispersion properties. This study describes the results of the Deep Water Dispersion Experiment (DWDE), which consisted of the release of surface drifters and acoustically tracked RAFOS floats drifting at 300 and 1,500 dbar in the Gulf of Mexico. We show that surface diffusivity is elevated and decreases with depth: on average, diffusivity at 1,500 dbar is 5 times smaller than at the surface, suggesting that the dispersion of contaminants at depth is a significantly slower process than at the surface. This study also examines the turbulent regimes driving the dispersion, although conflicting evidences and large uncertainties do not allow definitive conclusions. At all depths, while the growth of dispersion and kurtosis with time supports the possibility of an exponential regime at very short time scales, indicating that early dispersion is nonlocal, finite size Lyapunov exponents support the hypothesis of local dispersion, suggesting that eddies of size comparable to the initial separation (6 km), may dominate the early dispersion. At longer time scales, the quadratic growth of dispersion is indicative of a ballistic regime, where a mean shear flow would be the dominating process. Examination of the along- and across-bathymetry components of float velocities supports the idea that boundary currents could be the source for this shear dispersion.
  • Technical Report
    The Deep Water Dispersion Experiment: RAFOS float data report June 2016 - January 2019
    (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 2019-12) Ramsey, Andree L. ; Furey, Heather H. ; Bower, Amy S. ; Pérez-Brunius, Paula ; García-Carrillo, Paula
    This is the final data report for all acoustically-tracked subsurface RAFOS floats deployed for the “Deep Water Dispersion Experiment: RAFOS Float Study in Support of Analysis of Possible Consequences of Large Scale Oil-Spills under Various Scenarios” (DWDE). This study is part of the larger program “Deep and Shallow Particle Dispersion and Biological Connectivity over the Continental Slope in the Western Gulf of Mexico”, of the Gulf of Mexico Research Consortium (CIGoM). The objective of the DWDE project was to measure and evaluate the ocean circulation at various depths in order to estimate the rates and pathways by which a passive tracer (e.g. pollutant, nutrients, etc.) would spread. The experiment consisted of the deployment 93 RAFOS floats and five sound source moorings (needed for tracking the floats underwater) over the course of five cruises, between June 2016 and January 2019, in the Perdido region of the Gulf of Mexico. The floats were deployed nearly simultaneously at stacked depths of 300 and 1500 dbar, in sets of 2-4 instruments per station, for calculating dispersion statistics. Mission lengths for the floats were set to ~12 to 18 months. Included in this report are cruise summaries, statistics and notes on sound source and float performance, sound source drift calculations, description of the RAFOS float data processing steps, and figures.