MedArgo: a drifting profiler program in the Mediterranean Sea

Poulain, Pierre-Marie; Barbanti, R.; Font, Jordi; Cruzado, Antonio; Millot, Claude; Gertman, Isaac; Griffa, Annalisa; Molcard, Anne; Rupolo, V.; Bras, S. Le; Villéon, Loic Petit De La

doi:10.5194/os-3-379-2007

Cited by 81 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…They operated between 2011 and 2012 in the Ionian Sea. They were deployed in the framework of the Argo programme in the Mediterranean Sea (MedArgo, see Poulain et al, 2007). The profilers were equipped with Sea-Bird CTD (conductivity-temperature-depth) sensors (models SBE 41 or 41CP) with accuracies of ±0.002 • C, ±0.005 and ±2.4 dbar for temperature (T ), salinity (S) and pressure (P ), respectively.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extreme winter 2012 in the Adriatic: an example of climatic effect on the BiOS rhythm

et al. 2014

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Abstract. Adriatic and Ionian seas are Mediterranean subbasins linked through the Bimodal Oscillating System mechanism responsible for decadal reversals of the Ionian basinwide circulation. Altimetric maps showed that the last cyclonic mode started in 2011 but unexpectedly in 2012 reversed to anticyclonic. We related this "premature" inversion to the extremely strong winter in 2012, which caused the formation of very dense Adriatic waters, flooding Ionian flanks in May and inverting the bottom pressure gradient. Using Lagrangian float measurements, the linear regression between the sea surface height and three isopycnal depths suggests that the southward deep-layer flow coincided with the surface northward geostrophic current and the anticyclonic circulation regime. Density variations at depth in the northwestern Ionian revealed the arrival of Adriatic dense waters in May and maximum density in September. Comparison between the sea level height in the northwestern Ionian and in the basin centre showed that in coincidence with the arrival of the newly formed Adriatic dense waters the sea level was lowered in the northwestern flank, inverting the surface pressure gradient. Toward the end of 2012, the density gradient between the basin flanks and its centre went to zero, coinciding with the weakening of the anticyclonic circulation and eventually with its return to the cyclonic pattern. Thus, the premature and transient reversal of Ionian surface circulation originated from the extremely harsh winter in the Adriatic, resulting in the formation and spreading of highly dense bottom waters. The present study highlights the remarkable sensitiveness of the Adriatic-Ionian BiOS to climatic forcing.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extreme winter 2012 in the Adriatic: an example of climatic effect on the BiOS rhythm

et al. 2014

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“…The collected data are sent in real time to a data center after which they return to their parking depth. For the Mediterranean Sea, the MedArgo program has set the interval between the successive surfacings of Argo floats to 4-5 days and their parking depth to $400 m, the approximate depth of the Levantine Intermediate Waters [Poulain et al, 2007].…”

Section: Argo Floats Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Scales and dynamics of Submesoscale Coherent Vortices formed by deep convection in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea

et al. 2016

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Since 2010, an intense effort in the collection of in situ observations has been carried out in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea thanks to gliders, profiling floats, regular cruises, and mooring lines. This integrated observing system enabled a year‐to‐year monitoring of the deep waters formation that occurred in the Gulf of Lions area during four consecutive winters (2010–2013). Vortical structures remnant of wintertime deep vertical mixing events were regularly sampled by the different observing platforms. These are Submesoscale Coherent Vortices (SCVs) characterized by a small radius (∼5–8 km), strong depth‐intensified orbital velocities (∼10–20 cm s−1) with often a weak surface signature, high Rossby (∼0.5) and Burger numbers O(0.5–1). Anticyclones transport convected waters resulting from intermediate (∼300 m) to deep (∼2000 m) vertical mixing. Cyclones are characterized by a 500–1000 m thick layer of weakly stratified deep waters (or bottom waters that cascaded from the shelf of the Gulf of Lions in 2012) extending down to the bottom of the ocean at ∼2500 m. The formation of cyclonic eddies seems to be favored by bottom‐reaching convection occurring during the study period or cascading events reaching the abyssal plain. We confirm the prominent role of anticyclonic SCVs and shed light on the important role of cyclonic SCVs in the spreading of a significant amount (∼30%) of the newly formed deep waters away from the winter mixing areas. Since they can survive until the following winter, they can potentially have a great impact on the mixed layer deepening through a local preconditioning effect.

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“…The OceanVar operational assimilation cycle involves a wide range of observational data, from satellite-observed sea level anomalies (SLAs, Le Traon et al, 2003) and sea-surface temperatures (SSTs, Marullo et al, 2007), to temperature and salinity profiles from expendable bathytermographs (XBTs, Manzella et al, 2007) and Argo-float profilers (Poulain et al, 2007). The heat flux, on the other hand, is corrected by relaxing the modeled surface-layer temperatures towards the satellite-observed SST data (Dobricic et al, 2005).…”

Section: The Ocean General Circulation Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variational assimilation of Lagrangian trajectories in the Mediterranean ocean Forecasting System

Nilsson

Dobričić²,

Pinardi³

et al. 2012

Ocean Sci.

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Abstract.A novel method for three-dimensional variational assimilation of Lagrangian data with a primitive-equation ocean model is proposed. The assimilation scheme was implemented in the Mediterranean ocean Forecasting System and evaluated for a 4-month period. Four experiments were designed to assess the impact of trajectory assimilation on the model output, i.e. the sea-surface height, velocity, temperature and salinity fields. It was found from the drifter and Argo trajectory assimilation experiment that the forecast skill of surface-drifter trajectories improved by 15 %, that of intermediate-depth float trajectories by 20 %, and moreover, that the forecasted sea-surface height fields improved locally by 5 % compared to satellite data, while the quality of the temperature and salinity fields remained at previous levels. In conclusion, the addition of Lagrangian trajectory assimilation proved to reduce the uncertainties in the model fields, thus yielding a higher accuracy of the ocean forecasts.

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MedArgo: a drifting profiler program in the Mediterranean Sea

Cited by 81 publications

References 20 publications

Extreme winter 2012 in the Adriatic: an example of climatic effect on the BiOS rhythm

Extreme winter 2012 in the Adriatic: an example of climatic effect on the BiOS rhythm

Scales and dynamics of Submesoscale Coherent Vortices formed by deep convection in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea

Variational assimilation of Lagrangian trajectories in the Mediterranean ocean Forecasting System

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