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Dr Hrvoje Mihanovic is using novel techniques to study the effects of WA's blustery sea breezes on ocean surface currents and the behaviour of the Leeuwin and Capes currents.

Dr Mihanovic is a research scientist with the Oceanographic Department at the Hydrographic Institute of the Republic of Croatia, Split.

He is in Perth undertaking research at the Oceans Institute until September, in conjunction with UWA's School of Environmental Systems Engineering.

The oceanographer was awarded a six-month Go8 European Fellowship offered by Australia's Group of Eight universities to early career researchers from Europe.

In his native Split, part of Dr Mihanovic's research focused on using high frequency (HF) radar to study how strong winds such as the sirocco and the bora affect the surface waters of the northern Adriatic.

He is undertaking similar work during his stay in Perth.

The work involves analysing the effects of WA's sea breezes - some of the strongest sea breeze systems in the world - and their effects on the Leeuwin and Capes currents off the WA coast.

"I am analysing the surface current data from two HF radar stations of the WA coast, close to the Perth Canyon, one at Fremantle, the other at Guilderton," Dr Mihanovic says.

Relatively new

The work involves using Self-Organising Map analysis (SOM) to cope with the large amounts of continuous data and detect patterns in the information.

SOMs have been used by researchers in the fields of agriculture, music and robotics, but their use in oceanography is relatively new.

"With the HF radars, you have a large data set - up to 1,500 spatial points every hour in this area - which you would not be able to measure with classical oceanographic instruments," he says.

"So far, this is the best way to have a high resolution in time and space and the large area coverage of surface currents.

"What we are trying to do is to apply the same methods I was using in the Adriatic, using the Self Organising Maps to extract patterns of the surface currents in this area and to see what the interactions are between the Leeuwin Current and the Capes Current.

"The Leeuwin Current has quite strong surface currents throughout the year. And the Leeuwin Current also generates eddies and meanderings, and these are related to upwelling and downwelling systems in the area and also bringing nutrients from different parts of the water."

Being able to quickly analyse and model the large amounts of HF radar data involving sea breezes and currents off the coast could have other benefits.

"They could be used in short-term ocean forecasts, significantly shortening the decision time during search and rescue missions and hopefully mitigating potential disasters and accidents on the sea," Dr Mihanovic says.

"But this is something that still needs to be developed as to how it could be used operationally."

Media references

Tony Malkovic (on behalf of UWA Oceans Institute)  (+61 4) 11 103 398