Some Applications of Nonlinear Physics to Ocean Dynamics: from Lagrangian Chaos to Genetic Algorithms

Abstract

An important breakthrough in the development of chaotic dynamics appeared with the original work of Lorenz [1]. With the aim of weather forecasting, he proposed his now wellknown model as a low dimensional (three coupled ordinary differential equations) approximation to an infinite dimensional model (a partial differential equation) of the dynamical evolution of the atmosphere. Thus, the impact of Chaos theory or Nonlinear Dynamics on Geophysical fluid dynamics, i.e., fluid mechanics as it is applied to atmospheric or oceanic systems, has been important even since the first steps of this new field of Science. Briefly, this Thesis will be concerned with some possibly useful applications of different mathematical, computational and physical tools coming from Nonlinear Dynamics to specifically motivated oceanic problems. Of course, this is a very general assertion which we will try to clarify along this introduction.