Adrift.org.au - A free, quick and easy tool to quantitatively study planktonic surface drift in the global ocean

Abstract

Almost all organisms in the ocean are impacted by ocean currents. Hence, there is growing interest by marine ecologists in using objective methods to assess current drift and its implications for marine connectivity. Here, an online tool - hosted at adrift.org.au - is introduced that allows for a simple, quantitative assessment of drift patterns and transit time scales on the global scale. The tool is based on a statistical transition matrix representation of the observed trajectories of more than 15 thousand surface drifters. Users can select any point in the ocean and obtain the evolution of the probability density distribution for a tracer released at that point, both forward and backward in time, for a maximum interval of 10. years. It is envisioned that this tool will be used in research and teaching, especially where estimates of drift patterns and transit times are required quickly.