scholarly journals Hydrography in the Mediterranean Sea during a cruise with RV <i>Poseidon</i> in April 2014

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Hainbucher ◽  
V. Cardin ◽  
G. Siena ◽  
U. Hübner ◽  
M. Moritz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Water Column ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler ◽  
Intermediate Water ◽  
German Research ◽  
Current Profiler ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Vertical Spacing

Abstract. We report on data from an oceanographic cruise in the Mediterranean Sea on the German research vessel Poseidon in April 2014. Data were taken on a west–east section, starting at the Strait of Gibraltar and ending south-east of Crete, as well on sections in the Ionian and Adriatic Sea. The objectives of the cruise were threefold: to contribute to the investigation of the spatial evolution of the Levantine Intermediate Water (LIW) properties and of the deep water masses in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and to investigate the mesoscale variability of the upper water column. The measurements include salinity, temperature, oxygen and currents and were conducted with a conductivity, temperature and depth(CTD)/rosette system, an underway CTD and an acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP). The sections are on tracks which have been sampled during several other cruises, thus supporting the opportunity to investigate the long-term temporal development of the different variables. The use of an underway CTD made it possible to conduct measurements of temperature and salinity with a high horizontal spacing of 6 nm between stations and a vertical spacing of 1 dbar for the upper 800 m of the water column.

scholarly journals Hydrography in the Mediterranean Sea during a cruise with RV <i>POSEIDON</i> in April 2014

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 427-446
Author(s):  
D. Hainbucher ◽  
V. Cardin ◽  
G. Siena ◽  
U. Hübner ◽  
M. Moritz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Adriatic Sea ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Intermediate Water ◽  
Strait Of Gibraltar ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean Sea ◽  
German Research ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Long Term Variations

Abstract. We report on data from an oceanographic cruise in the Mediterranean Sea on the German research vessel POSEIDON in April 2014. Data were taken on a west–east section starting at the Strait of Gibraltar and ending south-east of Crete as well on sections in the Ionian and Adriatic Sea. The objectives of the cruise were twofold; long-term variations of the Levantine Intermediate Water (LIW) and the deep water masses of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea were investigated. The measurements include salinity, temperature, oxygen and currents and were conducted with a CTD/rosette system, an underway CTD and an ADCP. The sections are on tracks which have been sampled during several other cruises, thus supporting the opportunity to investigate the long term temporal development of the different variables. The use of an underway CTD made it possible to conduct measurements of temperature and salinity with a high resolution of 6 nm and a vertical resolution of 1 dbar for the upper 800 m of the water column.

scholarly journals Hydrographic situation during cruise M84/3 and P414 (spring 2011) in the Mediterranean Sea

Ocean Science ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 669-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Hainbucher ◽  
A. Rubino ◽  
V. Cardin ◽  
T. Tanhua ◽  
K. Schroeder ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler ◽  
Velocity Fields ◽  
Physical Parameters ◽  
Large Scale Circulation ◽  
Modes Of Variability ◽  
Current Profiler ◽  
The Mediterranean

Abstract. Aspects of hydrography and large-scale circulation observed in the Mediterranean Sea during the M84/3 and P414 cruises (April and June 2011, respectively) are presented. In contrast to most of the recent expeditions, which were limited to special areas of the basin, these two cruises, especially the M84/3, offered the opportunity of delineating a quasi-synoptic picture of the distribution of the relevant physical parameters along a section extending through the whole Mediterranean, from the Lebanese coast up to the Strait of Gibraltar. The foci of our analysis are the observed water mass properties and velocity fields. The first are investigated through T–S diagrams and an optimum multiparameter (OMP) analysis and the results are discussed also in the context of recently identified modes of variability; the second are studied by comparing the velocity fields observed using a vessel-mounted Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler and those calculated from the observed density fields. Overall, a distribution of temperature, salinity and geostrophic velocities emerges, which is far from that observed before the beginning of the so-called "Eastern Mediterranean Transient", a major climatic shift in the hydrography and circulation of the Mediterranean Sea which began at the end of the 1980s. The picture which emerges helps to further address the complexity of long-term evolution of hydrography and large-scale circulation of the Mediterranean Sea.

DOM DYNAMICS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA. Can a new fluorescence SENSOR contribute to its understanding?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Retelletti Brogi ◽  
Marta Furia ◽  
Giancarlo Bachi ◽  
Vanessa Cardin ◽  
Giuseppe Civitarese ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Organic Carbon ◽  
Dissolved Organic Carbon ◽  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Water Column ◽  
Fluorescence Sensor ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Intermediate Water ◽  
Physical Processes ◽  
Open Sea ◽  
The Mediterranean

&lt;p&gt;The Mediterranean Sea (Med Sea) can be considered as a natural laboratory for the study of dissolved organic matter (DOM) dynamics. Despite its small size, it is characterized by the same physical processes and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration and distribution as the global ocean. The Med Sea deep water DOC pool is however older than the Atlantic one and differences in the microbial loop and in DOM dynamics have been observed between the eastern (EMED) and western (WMED) basins. Fluorescence is a fast, cheap and highly sensitive tool to study DOM dynamics, it can therefor give useful information about the main processes affecting DOM distribution.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The main aims of this study were: (i) to investigate DOM dynamics in both Med Sea basins, in relation to the physical processes (e.g. vertical stratification, irradiation); and (ii) to validate the use of a new fluorescence sensor, developed in the framework of the SENSOR project (POR FESR, Tuscany Region), for the rapid, in-situ measurements of open-sea fluorescent DOM (FDOM). DOM dynamics was investigated by measuring dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and the fluorescence of FDOM. Samples were collected from surface to bottom in 26 stations during the trans-Mediterranean cruise &amp;#8220;MSM72&amp;#8221;, carried out on board the R/V MARIA S.MERIAN (Institut f&amp;#252;r Meereskunde der Universit&amp;#228;t Hamburg). The stations cover both the EMED and the WMED, from Gibraltar to the Crete Island.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Six fluorescent components were identified by applying the parallel factorial analysis (PARAFAC) to the measured excitation-emission matrices (EEMs). Two components were identified as marine humic-like, two as terrestrial humic-like, one as protein-like and one as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon-like (PAH-like).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Temperature and salinity increased moving from the WMED to the EMED. A surface minimum in salinity, was observed in the WMED, indicating the occurrence of the Atlantic Water (AW), whereas the presence of the Levantine Intermediate Water (LIW) was observed south of Crete. The vertical distribution of both DOC and humic-like FDOM was strongly affected by the water masses circulation and water column stratification. In the upper 200 m, DOC markedly increased from 50 to 80 &amp;#956;M moving eastward, likewise the protein-like component dominates the upper layer and increased moving from Gibraltar to Crete. In contrast, the humic-like components showed a minimum in the surface layer, and a decreasing moving eastward, probably due to photobleaching. The PAH-like component showed its maximum in correspondence with the areas characterized by intensive naval traffic. The accumulation of DOC, observed in the EMED, could be explained by a change in DOM quality, supported by the differences in FDOM.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In 2 selected stations, the fluorescence of humic-like and protein-like compounds was also measured along the water column by using the new fluorescence sensor and compared with PARAFAC results, in order to evaluate its performance for open sea waters.&lt;/p&gt;

scholarly journals The transient distributions of nuclear weapon-generated tritium and its decay product <sup>3</sup>He in the Mediterranean Sea, 1952–2011, and their oceanographic potential

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 649-690 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Roether ◽  
P. Jean-Baptiste ◽  
E. Fourré ◽  
J. Sültenfuß
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Transit Time ◽  
Nuclear Weapon ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Decay Product ◽  
Intermediate Water ◽  
Tyrrhenian Sea ◽  
Transit Times ◽  
Time Dispersion ◽  
The Mediterranean

Abstract. We present a comprehensive account of tritium and 3He in the Mediterranean Sea since the appearance of the tritium generated by the atmospheric nuclear-weapon testing in the 1950's and early 1960's, based on essentially all available observations. Tritium in surface waters rose to 20–30 TU in 1964 (TU = 1018 · [3H]/[H]), a factor of about 100 above the natural level, and thereafter declined 30-fold up to 2011. The decline was largely due to radioactive tritium decay, which produced significant amounts of its stable daughter 3He. We present the scheme by which we separate the tritiugenic part of 3He and the part due to release from the sea floor (terrigenic part). We show that the tritiugenic component can be quantified throughout the Mediterranean waters, typically to a &amp;pm;0.15 TU equivalent, mostly because the terrigenic part is low in 3He. This fact makes the Mediterranean unique in offering a potential for the use of tritiugenic 3He as a tracer. The transient distributions of the two tracers are illustrated by a number of sections spanning the entire sea and relevant features of their distributions are noted. By 2011, the 3He concentrations in the top few hundred meters had become low, in response to the decreasing tritium concentrations combined with a flushing out by the general westward drift of these waters. Tritium-3He ages in Levantine Intermediate Water (LIW) were obtained repeated in time at different locations, defining transit times from the LIW source region east of Rhodes. The ages show an upward trend with the time elapsed since the surface-water tritium maximum, which arises because the repeated observations represent increasingly slower moving parts of the full transit time spectrum of LIW. The transit time dispersion found by this new application of tritium-3He dating is considerable. We find mean transit times of 12 &amp;pm; 2 yr up to the Strait of Sicily, 18 &amp;pm; 3 yr up to the Tyrrhenian Sea, and 22 &amp;pm; 4 yr up into the Western Mediterranean. We furthermore present full Eastern Mediterranean sections of terrigenic 3He and tritium-3He age in 1987, the latter one similarly showing an effect of the transit time dispersion. We conclude that the available tritium and 3He data, in particular if combined with other tracer data, are useful for constraining the subsurface circulation and mixing of the Mediterranean Sea.

scholarly journals Integrated survey of elemental stoichiometry (C, N, P) from the western to eastern Mediterranean Sea

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 883-899 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Pujo-Pay ◽  
P. Conan ◽  
L. Oriol ◽  
V. Cornet-Barthaux ◽  
C. Falco ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Water Column ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Western Basin ◽  
Nutrient Sources ◽  
P Limitation ◽  
Elemental Stoichiometry ◽  
Deep Layers ◽  
Redfield Ratios ◽  
The Mediterranean

Abstract. This paper provides an extensive vertical and longitudinal description of the biogeochemistry along an East-West transect of 3000 km across the Mediterranean Sea during summer 2008 (BOUM cruise). During this period of strong stratification, the distribution of nutrients, particulate and dissolved organic carbon (DOC), nitrogen (DON) and phosphorus (DOP) were examined to produce a detailed spatial and vertically extended description of the elemental stoichiometry of the Mediterranean Sea. Surface waters were depleted in nutrients and the thickness of this depleted layer increased towards the East from about 10 m in the Gulf of Lion to more than 100 m in the Levantine basin, with the phosphacline deepening to a greater extent than that for corresponding nitracline and thermocline depths. We used the minimum oxygen concentration through the water column in combination with 2 fixed concentrations of dissolved oxygen to distinguish an intermediate layer (Mineralization Layer; ML) from surface (Biogenic Layer; BL), and deep layers (DL). Whilst each layer was represented by different water masses, this approach allowed us to propose a schematic box-plot representation of the biogeochemical functioning of the two Mediterranean basins. Despite the increasing oligotrophic nature and the degree of P-depletion along the West to East gradient strong similarities were encountered between eastern and western ecosystems. Within the BL, the C:N:P ratios in all pools largely exceeded the Redfield ratios, but surprisingly, the nitrate vs. phosphate ratios in the ML and DL tended towards the canonical Redfield values in both basins. A change in particulate matter composition has been identified by a C increase relative to N and P along the whole water column in the western basin and between BL and ML in the eastern one. Our data showed a noticeable stability of the DOC:DON ratio (12–13) throughout the Mediterranean Sea. This is in good agreement with a P-limitation of microbial activities but in contradiction of the accepted concept that N is recycled faster than C. The western and eastern basins had similar or close biological functioning. Differences come from variability in the allochtonous nutrient sources in terms of quantity and quality, and to the specific hydrodynamic features of the Mediterranean basins.

Levant Basin as a key for Understanding the Messinian Salinity Crisis: Challenging the Desiccation Paradigm

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zohar Gvirtzman ◽  
Vinicio Manzi ◽  
Ran Calvo ◽  
Ittai Gavrieli ◽  
Rocco Gennari ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Water Column ◽  
Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Messinian Salinity Crisis ◽  
Seismic Surveys ◽  
Salt Rocks ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Levant Basin

&lt;p&gt;The Messinian salinity crisis (MSC) is an extreme event in Earth history during which a salt giant (&gt;1&amp;#215;10&lt;sup&gt;6&lt;/sup&gt; km&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;) accumulated on the Mediterranean seafloor within ~640 kyrs. The Messinian salt giant was formed about 6 million years ago when the restriction of water exchanges between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea turned the Mediterranean into an enormous saline basin. After more than 40 years of research, the timing and the depositional environments of shallow (&lt;200 m) and intermediate (200-1000 m) water-depth Messinian basins are known quite well from onshore outcrops. But what happened in the deepest portions of the Mediterranean Sea is still unclear, because the information about offshore successions is mainly based on geophysical data with no rock samples that can be dated.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The Levant Basin is the only deep Mediterranean basin where the entire Messinian section has been penetrated by wells tied to high resolution 3D seismic surveys. Here we present two studies challenging the desiccation paradigm dominating the MSC scientific literature for more than 40 years.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The first study focuses on the nearly flat top erosion surface (TES) that truncates a basinward-tilted Messinian evaporitic succession. This truncation is commonly interpreted to be the result of subaerial erosion at the end of the MSC. However, based on high resolution seismic surveys and wireline logs, we show that (1) the TES is actually an intra-Messinian truncation surface (IMTS) located ~100 m below the Messinian-Zanclean boundary; (2) the topmost, post-truncation, Messinian unit is very different from the underlying salt deposits and consists mostly of shale, sand, and anhydrite showing typical &lt;sup&gt;87&lt;/sup&gt;Sr/&lt;sup&gt;86&lt;/sup&gt;Sr values and fauna assemblages from stage 3; and (3) the flat IMTS is a dissolution surface related to significant dilution and stratification of the water column during the transition from stage 2 to stage 3. We suggest that dissolution occurred upslope where salt rocks at the seabed were exposed to the upper diluted brine, while downslope the salt rocks were preserved because submerged in the deeper halite-saturated layer. The model, which requires a stratified water column, is inconsistent with a complete desiccation of the eastern Mediterranean Sea.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The second study focuses on the onset of the Messinian salinity crisis in the deep Eastern Mediterranean basin. Biostratigraphy and astronomical tuning of the Messinian pre-salt succession in the Levant Basin allows for the first time the reconstruction of a detailed chronology of the MSC events in deep setting and their correlation with marginal records that supports the CIESM (2008) 3-stage model. Our main conclusions are (1) MSC events were synchronous across marginal and deep basins, (2) MSC onset in deep basins occurred at 5.97 Ma, (3) only foraminifera-barren, evaporite-free shales accumulated in deep settings between 5.97 and 5.60 Ma, (4) deep evaporites (sulfate and halite) deposition started later, at 5.60 Ma. The wide synchrony of events implies inter-sub-basin connection during the whole salinity crisis and is not compatible with large sea-level fall that would have separated the eastern and western basins producing diachronic processes.&lt;/p&gt;

scholarly journals The transient distributions of nuclear weapon-generated tritium and its decay product <sup>3</sup> He in the Mediterranean Sea, 1952–2011, and their oceanographic potential

Ocean Science ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 837-854 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Roether ◽  
P. Jean-Baptiste ◽  
E. Fourré ◽  
J. Sültenfuß
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Transit Time ◽  
Nuclear Weapon ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Decay Product ◽  
Intermediate Water ◽  
Tyrrhenian Sea ◽  
Transit Times ◽  
Time Dispersion ◽  
The Mediterranean

Abstract. We present a comprehensive account of tritium and 3He in the Mediterranean Sea since the appearance of the tritium generated by the atmospheric nuclear-weapon testing in the 1950s and early 1960s, based on essentially all available observations. Tritium in surface waters rose to 20–30 TU in 1964 (TU = 1018 × [3H]/H]), a factor of about 100 above the natural level, and thereafter declined 30-fold up to 2011. The decline was largely due to radioactive tritium decay, which produced significant amounts of its stable daughter 3He. We present the scheme by which we separate the tritiugenic part of 3He and the part due to release from the sea floor (terrigenic part). We show that the tritiugenic component can be quantified throughout the Mediterranean waters, typically to a ± 0.15 TU equivalent, mostly because the terrigenic part is low in 3He. This fact makes the Mediterranean unique in offering a potential for the use of tritiugenic 3He as a tracer. The transient distributions of the two tracers are illustrated by a number of sections spanning the entire sea and relevant features of their distributions are noted. By 2011, the 3He concentrations in the top few hundred metres had become low, in response to the decreasing tritium concentrations combined with a flushing out by the general westward drift of these waters. Tritium-3He ages in Levantine Intermediate Water (LIW) were obtained repeated in time at different locations, defining transit times from the LIW source region east of Rhodes. The ages show an upward trend with the time elapsed since the surface-water tritium maximum, which arises because the repeated observations represent increasingly slower moving parts of the full transit time spectrum of LIW. The transit time dispersion revealed by this new application of tritium-3He dating is considerable. We find mean transit times of 12 ± 2 yr up to the Strait of Sicily, 18 ± 3 yr up to the Tyrrhenian Sea, and 22 ± 4 yr up into the Western Mediterranean. Furthermore, we present full Eastern Mediterranean sections of terrigenic 3He and tritium-3He age in 1987, the latter one similarly showing an effect of the transit time dispersion. We conclude that the available tritium and 3He data, particularly if combined with other tracer data, are useful for constraining the subsurface circulation and mixing of the Mediterranean Sea.

scholarly journals Recent hydrological status of the Aegean Sea derived from free drifting profilers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
DIMITRIS KASSIS ◽  
GERASIMOS KORRES
Keyword(s):  
Physical Properties ◽  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Water Column ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Temporal Distribution ◽  
Aegean Sea ◽  
Water Masses ◽  
Latitudinal Gradients ◽  
Intermediate Water ◽  
Argo Floats

Being a semi-enclosed basin of the Mediterranean Sea, the Aegean Sea comprises a complex hydrology that plays a significant role in the hydrology of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its interaction with many sub-basins, along with its contribution towards the formation of deep and intermediate water, makes it an ideal case for the study of hydrological changes in transitional areas. Since 2010, the operational monitoring of the basin has been significantly enriched due to the deployment of autonomous free-drifting profilers (Argo floats) under the framework of the newly formed Greek Argo Research Infrastructure activities. In this study the hydrological status of the area is examined for the period 2010 - 2017 using the temperature and salinity profiles acquired from Argo floats that operated in the basin. The profiles are analyzed together with complementary remote sensing and model outputs datasets in order to present the spatio-temporal distribution of the co-existent water masses and shed light on hydrological features and changes that took place throughout the basin in an attempt to reassess its hydrological status during the last decade. The distribution of the physical properties in different sub-regions and their interaction is examined reconstructing a general picture of strong latitudinal gradients in the T-S and σθ fields from the upper layers towards the deeper zones. Interannually, findings indicate changes of the Aegean water masses structure within the water-column. Deep homogenization in the upper layers is recorded mainly during the winter periods of 2011-2012, 2014-2015 and 2016-2017 in the southern, central, and northern parts of the area accordingly. The observed dense water formation events, along with mixing and advection appear to alterate the water column physical properties structure and affect the dynamics of the surface and sub-surface dominant water masses in the Aegean. The results further highlight the valuable information that can be extracted from the operation of free-drifting profilers in enclosed marginal seas similar to the Aegean case.

scholarly journals Recent findings of Ommastrephes bartramii (Cephalopoda: Ommastrephidae) in the eastern Mediterranean and the implication on its range expansion

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 413 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. LEFKADITOU ◽  
P. PERISTERAKI ◽  
N. CHARTOSIA ◽  
A. SALMAN
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Species Distribution ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Aegean Sea ◽  
Intermediate Water ◽  
Ommastrephes Bartramii ◽  
Western Basin ◽  
The North ◽  
Lower Beak ◽  
The Mediterranean

The neon flying squid Ommastrephes bartramii is found circumglobally in subtropical, temperate waters and sustains important fisheries in the North Pacific, but it is rarely encountered in the Mediterranean Sea. During the last decade, and particularly since 2004, the frequency of its presence in the Aegean Sea and nearby regions has increased, raising a question about a change in the species distribution and abundance in this area. In this study, we reviewed the literature on O. bartramii findings in the Mediterranean Sea and present new data describing body and beak morphometry, diet and the maturity of specimens recently collected from the easternmost basins. According to data from the entire Mediterranean Sea, collected individuals reached 66 cm in mantle length (ML), wherein only females were larger than 32 cm in ML. An isometric growth in body weight (BW) was shown, whereas the lower beak rostral length (LRL) was allometrically positive in relation to the ML. Occasional catches by jigs during experimental cruises provided most of the individuals recorded in the period from 1982-1992. In contrast, the most recent records are primarily comprised of mature females collected on or near the shore in the eastern basin and of predominantly smaller individuals from the western basin caught by professional jigging fisheries. The distribution of the specimen recorded from the Aegean Sea indicates an association between the species distribution and the circulation of the warm Levantine Intermediate Water. The more frequent observations of moribund spawning females at the periphery of the Cretan Sea are indicative of a spawning ground at this area. The suspected recent increase of O. bartramii abundance in both the northeastern and northwestern basins might be due to the warming of upper sea layers, which has been observed since the mid-1980s and is considered to be the main factor driving the northward expansion of the warm-water species’ range within the Mediterranean Sea.

scholarly journals Variability and Trends in Physical and Biogeochemical Parameters of the Mediterranean Sea during a Cruise with RV MARIA S. MERIAN in March 2018

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dagmar Hainbucher ◽  
Marta Álvarez ◽  
Blanca Astray Uceda ◽  
Giancarlo Bachi ◽  
Vanessa Cardin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽  
Circulation Patterns ◽  
German Research ◽  
Zonal Section ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Biogeochemical Parameters ◽  
Anthropogenic Contributions

Abstract. The last decades have seen dramatic changes in the hydrography and biogeochemistry of the Mediterranean Sea. The complex bathymetry, highly variable spatial and temporal scales of atmospheric forcing and internal processes contribute to generate complex and unsteady circulation patterns and significant variability in biogeochemical systems. Part of this variability can be influenced by anthropogenic contributions. Consequently, it is necessary to document details and to understand trends in place to better relate the observed processes and to possibly predict the consequences of these changes. In this context we report on data from an oceanographic cruise in the Mediterranean Sea on the German research vessel MARIA S. MERIAN (MSM72) in March 2018. The main objective of the cruise was to contribute to the understanding of long-term changes and trends in physical and biogeochemical parameters, such as the anthropogenic carbon uptake and to further assess the hydrographical situation after the major climatological shifts in the eastern and western part of the basin, known as the Eastern and Western Mediterranean Transients. During the cruise, multidisciplinary measurements were conducted on a predominantly zonal section throughout the Mediterranean Sea, contributing to the global GO-SHIP repeating hydrography program and adhering to the GO-SHIP requirements.

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