Particle-Based Lagrangian Filtering for Locating Wave-Generated Thermal Refugia for Coral Reefs

The high spatial resolution required to resolve such waves in numerical models means that diagnosing wave-generated heat fluxes (WHFs) has so far only been possible over very limited areas. Because many marine ecosystems that are affected by WHFs, such as coral reefs, are patchily distributed within domains of hundreds of kilometers, an alternative to fully wave-resolving models is needed to identify thermal refugia and guide conservation efforts over larger regions.

In this study, a one-way nested series of regional ocean simulations has been conducted to study the role of waves in driving high-frequency temperature variations in the Coral Triangle and to develop a method for identifying WHF in coarser-resolution models. A filtering method using Lagrangian particles is used to separate the wave component of the flow, which is used to diagnose the wave energy and to identify locations experiencing large, high-frequency temperature variability.