  Recent developments in dynamical systems theory have revealed long-lived and
coherent Lagrangian (i.e., material) eddies in incompressible,
satellite-derived surface ocean velocity fields. Paradoxically, observed
drifting buoys and floating matter tend to create dissipative-looking patterns
near oceanic eddies, which appear to be inconsistent with the conservative
fluid particle patterns created by coherent Lagrangian eddies. Here we show
that inclusion of inertial effects (i.e., those produced by the buoyancy and
size finiteness of an object) in a rotating two-dimensional incompressible flow
context resolves this paradox. Specifically, we obtain that anticyclonic
coherent Lagrangian eddies attract (repel) negatively (positively) buoyant
finite-size particles, while cyclonic coherent Lagrangian eddies attract
(repel) positively (negatively) buoyant finite-size particles. We show how
these results explain dissipative-looking satellite-tracked surface drifter and
subsurface float trajectories, as well as satellite-derived \emph{Sargassum}
distributions.
