Consistent with satellite-tracked trajectories of drogued drifters, but at odds with Eulerian assessment of satellite-altimetry measurements of sea-surface height, we show that North Brazil Currents Rings (NBCRs) are incapable of bypassing the Lesser Antilles as structures that coherently transport material. The nature of the inability of the de-facto oceanographic Eulerian, streamline-based eddy detection technique to produce a correct assessment is rooted in its lack of objectivity. We arrive at this conclusion by applying \emph{geodesic eddy detection} on the altimetric dataset over nearly its entire extent. While we detect northwestward translating NBCRs that can be classified as coherent Lagrangian eddies, they typically experience strong filamentation and complete loss of coherence prior to reaching the Lesser Antilles. Moreover, the filamented material hardly penetrates into the Caribbean Sea, let alone the Gulf of Mexico, and not without substantively mixing with the ambient fluid east of the archipelago.

Pyro-cumulonimbus convection associated with extreme wildfires can generate longlived vortical structures in the stratosphere. These structures have been described as coherent, yet a rigorous material characterization has remained lacking. Here we provide such a characterization by applying geodesic vortex detection to reanalysis winds during the 2019–2020 Australian bushfires. We identify a coherent Lagrangian vortex, dubbed Koobor, whose boundary is given by materially coherent loops exhibiting nearly uniform stretching and strong resistance to filamentation over finite time intervals of up to 40 days. The detected vortex extends across multiple isentropic levels, revealing a vertically organized evolution with delayed onset and reduced persistence at higher levels. Taken together across isentropic levels, the reconstructed life cycle indicates that Koobor maintained quasi-material coherence for nearly 60 days from its first detection, through a sequence of overlapping materially coherent boundaries rather than a single boundary advected over the entire period. Our results establish a material framework for wildfire-induced stratospheric vortices and provide a dynamically consistent description of their life cycle, from formation to decay

Pyro-cumulonimbus convection associated with extreme wildfires can generate longlived vortical structures in the stratosphere. These structures have been described as coherent, yet a rigorous material characterization has remained lacking. Here we provide such a characterization by applying geodesic vortex detection to reanalysis winds during the 2019–2020 Australian bushfires. We identify a coherent Lagrangian vortex, dubbed Koobor, whose boundary is given by materially coherent loops exhibiting nearly uniform stretching and strong resistance to filamentation over finite time intervals of up to 40 days. The detected vortex extends across multiple isentropic levels, revealing a vertically organized evolution with delayed onset and reduced persistence at higher levels. Taken together across isentropic levels, the reconstructed life cycle indicates that Koobor maintained quasi-material coherence for nearly 60 days from its first detection, through a sequence of overlapping materially coherent boundaries rather than a single boundary advected over the entire period. Our results establish a material framework for wildfire-induced stratospheric vortices and provide a dynamically consistent description of their life cycle, from formation to decay

Pyro-cumulonimbus convection associated with extreme wildfires can generate longlived vortical structures in the stratosphere. These structures have been described as coherent, yet a rigorous material characterization has remained lacking. Here we provide such a characterization by applying geodesic vortex detection to reanalysis winds during the 2019–2020 Australian bushfires. We identify a coherent Lagrangian vortex, dubbed Koobor, whose boundary is given by materially coherent loops exhibiting nearly uniform stretching and strong resistance to filamentation over finite time intervals of up to 40 days. The detected vortex extends across multiple isentropic levels, revealing a vertically organized evolution with delayed onset and reduced persistence at higher levels. Taken together across isentropic levels, the reconstructed life cycle indicates that Koobor maintained quasi-material coherence for nearly 60 days from its first detection, through a sequence of overlapping materially coherent boundaries rather than a single boundary advected over the entire period. Our results establish a material framework for wildfire-induced stratospheric vortices and provide a dynamically consistent description of their life cycle, from formation to decay

We identify effective carriers of \emph{Sargassum} in the Caribbean Sea and describe a mechanism for coastal choking. Revealed from satellite altimetry, the carriers of \emph{Sargassum} are mesoscale eddies (vortices of 50-km radius or larger) with coherent material (i.e., fluid) boundaries. These are observer-independent -- \emph{unlike} eddy boundaries identified with instantaneously closed streamlines of the altimetric sea-surface height field -- and furthermore harbor finite-time attractors for networks of elastically connected finite-size buoyant or "inertial" particles dragged by ocean currents and winds, a mathematical abstraction of \emph{Sargassum} rafts. The mechanism of coastal inundation, identified using a minimal model of surface-intensified Caribbean Sea eddies, is thermal instability in the presence of bottom topography.

Pyro-cumulonimbus convection associated with extreme wildfires can generate longlived vortical structures in the stratosphere. These structures have been described as coherent, yet a rigorous material characterization has remained lacking. Here we provide such a characterization by applying geodesic vortex detection to reanalysis winds during the 2019–2020 Australian bushfires. We identify a coherent Lagrangian vortex, dubbed Koobor, whose boundary is given by materially coherent loops exhibiting nearly uniform stretching and strong resistance to filamentation over finite time intervals of up to 40 days. The detected vortex extends across multiple isentropic levels, revealing a vertically organized evolution with delayed onset and reduced persistence at higher levels. Taken together across isentropic levels, the reconstructed life cycle indicates that Koobor maintained quasi-material coherence for nearly 60 days from its first detection, through a sequence of overlapping materially coherent boundaries rather than a single boundary advected over the entire period. Our results establish a material framework for wildfire-induced stratospheric vortices and provide a dynamically consistent description of their life cycle, from formation to decay