Statistical Descriptors of Ocean Regimes From the Geometric Regularity of SST Observations

In this letter, we evaluate to which extent the activity of ocean fronts can be retrieved from the geometric regularity of ocean tracer observations. Applied to sea surface temperature (SST), we propose a method for the characterization of this geometric regularity from curvature-based statistics along temperature level lines in front regions. To assess the effectiveness of the proposed descriptors, we used six years (from 2003 to 2008) of daily SST observations of the regions of Agulhas in the South of Africa and of Malvinas off the southern Brazilian coast. These experiments stress the relevance of geometric regularity features of tracer observation at ocean surface to characterize seasonal variations in ocean regimes.