Oceanic motions with spatial scales of 200 m–20 km, called submesoscales, are ubiquitous
in the upper ocean and serve as a key intermediary between larger-scale balanced …

Marine plastic debris floating on the ocean surface is a major environmental problem.
However, its distribution in the ocean is poorly mapped, and most of the plastic waste …

The future international Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) Mission, planned for
launch in 2021, will make high-resolution 2D observations of sea-surface height using SAR …

From microbes to large predators, there is increasing evidence that marine life is shaped by
short-lived submesoscales currents that are difficult to observe, model, and explain …

This article is a perspective on the recently discovered realm of submesoscale currents in
the ocean. They are intermediate-scale flow structures in the form of density fronts and …

Recent studies highlight that oceanic motions associated with horizontal scales smaller than
50 km, defined here as submesoscales, lead to anomalous vertical heat fluxes from colder to …

Floating oil, plastics, and marine organisms are continually redistributed by ocean surface
currents. Prediction of their resulting distribution on the surface is a fundamental, long …

Criteria for discriminating between radar signatures of oil films and biogenic slicks visible on
synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images of the sea surface as dark patches are critically …

Ageostrophic baroclinic instabilities develop within the surface mixed layer of the ocean at
horizontal fronts and efficiently restratify the upper ocean. In this paper a parameterization …

Increased spatial resolution in recent observations and modeling has revealed a richness of
structure and processes on lateral scales of a kilometer in the upper ocean. Processes at …