The black contours shown are reachability front forecasts, at 12 hour intervals (0hr to 192hr forecasts, with increasing line thickness for later times). The reachability front is the boundary of the largest set (the reachable set) that the glider can reach within that duration. It is computed by numerically solving our exact governing PDE for this time-optimal reachability front.
In this forecast, we consider three different release locations: the requested one (at 26.5°N, 85.0°W), and then two others a bit to the north and northwest (27°N, 85.0°W and 27.5°N, 85.5°W, respectively). The latter two release locations were chosen to avoid the stronger southward LC currents and to allow the glider to go northwest and then south. All three starting locations are overlaid on the MSEAS SST PE forecast plot shown first below.
Each column in the second table corresponds to one release location, and contains the MSEAS reachability forecasts for 4 different assumed glider speeds: 50, 40, 30, and 20 cm/s.
| Starting locations overlaid on SST |
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| Assumed Speed (cm/s) | Starting Location 1: 26.5°N, 85.0°W |
Starting Location 2: 27.0°N, 85.0°W |
Starting Location 3: 27.5°N, 85.5°W |
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| 0-1000m Avg Velocity Background | 0-1000m Avg Velocity Background | 0-1000m Avg Velocity Background | |
| 50 |
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| 40 |
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| 30 |
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| 20 |
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