ecosystems, society, and the economy as evidenced by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in
the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and the Fukushima nuclear plant incident in the Pacific Ocean in
2011. Accurate prediction of pollutant pathways and concentrations at the ocean surface
requires understanding ocean dynamics over a broad range of spatial scales. Fundamental
questions concerning the structure of the velocity field at the submesoscales (100 m to tens …