The powerful jets of currents induced by vessels' propellers in ports often cause areas of erosion and deposition, strongly impacting the port's operability. The capacity to fully understand and predict these complex dynamics would be a fundamental help for port operators in order to optimize and efficiently plan port management and seabed maintenance. In the present work, we show how this is possible using high-resolution modeling of hydrodynamics and sediment transport.

Plastic pollution is a major environmental issue affecting the oceans. The number of floating and sedimented pieces has been quantified by several studies. But their abundance in the water column remains mostly unknown. To fill this gap we model the dynamics of a particular type of particle, rigid microplastics sinking rapidly in open sea in the Mediterranean. We find they represent a small but appreciable fraction of the total sea plastic and discuss characteristics of their sinking motion.

The Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer (CIMR) is one of the high-priority satellite missions of the Copernicus program within the European Space Agency. It is designed to respond to the European Union Arctic policy. Its channels, incidence angle, precisions, and spatial resolutions have been selected to observe the Arctic Ocean with the recommendations expressed by the user communities. In this note, we present the sensitivity analysis that has led to the choice of the CIMR channels.

We have characterized the major water masses in the Atlantic Ocean based on the properties found in their formation areas using six properties taken from the GLODAPv2 data product, including both conservative (conservative temperature and absolute salinity) and non-conservative (oxygen, silicate, phosphate and nitrate) properties. The distributions of the water masses are estimated by using the optimum multi-parameter (OMP) model, and we have mapped the distributions of the water masses.

The various currents in the southwestern Pacific Ocean contribute to the redistribution of waters from the subtropical gyre equatorward and poleward. The drivers of their interannual variability are not completely understood but are usually thought to be related to well-known climate modes of variability. Here, we suggest that oceanic chaotic variability alone, which is by definition unpredictable, explains the majority of this interannual variability south of 20° S.

Observations of transient tracer distribution provide essential information on ocean ventilation. The use of several commonly used transient traces is limited as their atmospheric mole fractions do not monotonically change. Here we explore new potential oceanic transient tracers with an analytical system that simultaneously measures a large range of compounds. Combined with the known atmospheric history and seawater solubility, we discuss the utility of selected HCFCs, HFCs, and PFCs as tracers.

An analysis of simulated German Bight surface currents reveals linear structures along which water bodies of different origin converge. Identification of these non-stationary structures supports the interpretation of monitoring data; observations gathered at stations that are neighbouring but separated by a line of convergence may substantially differ. The analysis could also be helpful for organizing field campaigns such that new observations do not just duplicate information already available.

Investigation of free sea level oscillations is important for understanding of specifics of oceanographic processes and for their identification. Based on numerical experiments with the 3-D INMOM hydrodynamic model, we demonstrated that after cessation of atmospheric forcing, the water masses of the Baltic Sea return to equilibrium state as in the form of barotropic progressive–standing waves with 13–44 h periods, as in the form of baroclinic low-frequency waves with periods of 89 and 358 d.

Ash from the Calbuco 2015 eruption spread across northern Patagonia, the SE Pacific and the SW Atlantic. In the Pacific, a phytoplankton bloom corresponded closely to the volcanic ash plume, suggesting that ash fertilized this region of the ocean. No such fertilization was found in the Atlantic where nutrients plausibly supplied by ash were likely already in excess of phytoplankton demand. In Patagonia, the May bloom was more intense than usual, but the mechanistic link to ash was less clear.

The Korea Strait is a major navigation passage linking the Japan Sea to the East China Sea and Yellow Sea. This paper establishes a theoretical model for the tides in the Korea Strait and Japan Sea using the extended Taylor method. The model solution explains the formation mechanism of the tidal amphidromic systems in the Korea Strait, and why the K₁ amphidromic point is located farther away from the shelf break separating the Korea Strait and Japan Sea in comparison to the M₂ amphidromic point.

A Seaglider was deployed for 8 months in the Norwegian Sea mounting an oxygen and, for the first time, a CO₂ optode and a chlorophyll fluorescence sensor. The oxygen and CO₂ data were used to assess the spatial and temporal variability and calculate the net community production, N(O₂) and N(CT). The dataset was used to calculate net community production from inventory changes, air–sea flux, diapycnal mixing and entrainment.