We develop and illustrate an efficient but rigorous methodology that predicts the time-optimal paths of ocean vehicles in dynamic continuous flows. The goal is to best utilize or avoid currents, without limitation on these currents nor on the number of vehicles. The methodology employs a new modified level set equation to evolve a wavefront from the starting point of vehicles until they reach their desired goal locations, combining flow advection with nominal vehicle motions. The optimal paths of vehicles are then computed by solving particle tracking equations backwards in time. The computational cost is linear with the number of vehicles and geometric with spatial dimensions. The methodology is applicable to any continuous flows and many vehicles scenarios. Present illustrations consist of the crossing of a canonical uniform jet and its validation with an optimization problem, as well as more complex time varying 2D flow fields, including jets, eddies and forbidden regions.

Following the scientific, technical and field trial initiatives ongoing since the Maritime Rapid Environmental Assessment (MREA) conferences in 2003, 2004 and 2007, the MREA10 conference provided a timely opportunity to review the progress on various aspects of MREA, with a particular emphasis on marine environmental uncertainty management. A key objective of the conference was to review the present state-of-the art in Quantifying, Predicting and Exploiting (QPE) marine environmental uncertainties. The integration of emerging environmental monitoring and modeling techniques into data assimilation streams and their subsequent exploitation at an operational level involves a complex chain of non-linear uncertainty transfers, including human factors. Accordingly the themes for the MREA10 conference were selected to develop a better understanding of uncertainty, from its inception in the properties being measured and instrumentation employed, to its eventual impact in the applications that rely upon environmental information.

Contributions from the scientific community were encouraged on all aspects of environmental uncertainties: their quantification, prediction, understanding and exploitation. Contributions from operational communities, the consumers of environmental information who have to cope with uncertainty, were also encouraged. All temporal and spatial scales were relevant: tactical, operational, and strategic, including uncertainty studies for topics with long-term implications. Manuscripts reporting new technical and theoretical developments in MREA, but acknowledging effects of uncertainties to be accounted for in future research, were also included.

The response was excellent with 87 oral presentations (11 of which were invited keynote speakers) and 24 poster presentations during the conference. A subset of these presentations was submitted to this topical issue and 22 manuscripts have been published by Ocean Dynamics.

We estimate and study the evolution of the dominant dimensionality of dynamical systems with uncertainty governed by stochastic partial differential equations, within the context of dynamically orthogonal (DO) field equations. Transient nonlinear dynamics, irregular data and non-stationary statistics are typical in a large range of applications such as oceanic and atmospheric flow estimation. To efficiently quantify uncertainties in such systems, it is essential to vary the dimensionality of the stochastic subspace with time. An objective here is to provide criteria to do so, working directly with the original equations of the dynamical system under study and its DO representation. We first analyze the scaling of the computational cost of these DO equations with the stochastic dimensionality and show that unlike many other stochastic methods the DO equations do not suffer from the curse of dimensionality. Subsequently, we present the new adaptive criteria for the variation of the stochastic dimensionality based on instantaneous i) stability arguments and ii) Bayesian data updates. We then illustrate the capabilities of the derived criteria to resolve the transient dynamics of two 2D stochastic fluid flows, specifically a double-gyre wind-driven circulation and a lid-driven cavity flow in a basin. In these two applications, we focus on the growth of uncertainty due to internal instabilities in deterministic flows. We consider a range of flow conditions described by varied Reynolds numbers and we study and compare the evolution of the uncertainty estimates under these varied conditions.

Prof. Lermusiaux was invited to give a presentation on “Ocean Modeling and Data Assimilation for the Maritime Industry” at the Gloucester (MA) New Maritime Port Economy Summit on November 15, 2011. More information on the summit is available at this web site. A PDF copy of his presentation is available here.