Submesoscale dispersion of surface drifters in a coastal sea  near offshore wind farms

Callies, Ulrich; Carrasco, Ruben; Floeter, Jens; Horstmann, Jochen; Quante, Markus

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-865-2019

Articles | Volume 15, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-865-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-865-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 4

Research article

|

09 Jul 2019

Research article |

| 09 Jul 2019

Submesoscale dispersion of surface drifters in a coastal sea near offshore wind farms

Ulrich Callies, Ruben Carrasco, Jens Floeter, Jochen Horstmann, and Markus Quante

Data sets

German Bight surface drifter data from Heincke cruise HE445, 2015 R. Carrasco and J. Horstmann https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.874511

Track of GPS-Drifters from HEINCKE cruise HE490 R. Carrasco, J. Floeter and J. Horstmann https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.882329

Model code and software

Track of GPS-DRifters from HEINCKE cruise HE496 R. Carrasco, J. Floeter and J. Horstmann https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.882346

Short summary

We analyse how surface drifters separate after being released as pairs or triplets in close proximity to wind farms. There is some tentative evidence that these drifters experience turbulent flows arising from an interaction between tidal currents and wind turbine towers. However, more comprehensive studies would be needed to clearly distinguish such wind-farm-related effects from the effects of turbulence that naturally occurs in a complex coastal environment.