scholarly journals Lagrangian eddy tracking reveals the Eratosthenes anticyclonic attractor in the eastern Levantine basin

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Barboni ◽  
Ayah Lazar ◽  
Alexandre Stegner ◽  
Evangelos Moschos

Abstract. Statistics of anticyclone activity and trajectories in the southeastern Mediterranean sea over the period 2000–2018 is created using the DYNED atlas, which links the automated mesoscale eddy detection by the AMEDA algorithm with in situ oceanographic observations. This easternmost region of the Mediterranean sea, delimited by the Levantine coast and Cyprus, has a complex eddying activity, which has not yet been fully characterized. In this paper we use Lagrangian tracking to investigate the eddy fluxes and interactions between different subregions in this area. We find that the southeastern Levantine area is isolated, with no anticyclone exchanges with the western part of the basin. Moreover the anticyclonic structure above the Eratosthenes seamount is identified as being an anticyclone attractor, differentiated from other anticyclones and staying around this preferred position up to four years with successive mergings. Colocalized in situ profiles inside eddies provide quantitative information on their subsurface structure and show that similar surface signatures correspond to very different physical properties. Despite interannual variability, the so-called Eratosthenes attractor stores a larger amount of heat and salt than neighbouring anticyclones, in a deeper subsurface anomaly that usually extend down to 500 m. This suggests that this attractor could concentrate heat and salt from this sub-basin, which will impact the properties of intermediate water masses created there.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Barboni ◽  
Ayah Lazar ◽  
Alexandre Stegner ◽  
Evangelos Moschos

<p>Statistics of anticyclone activity and trajectories in the southeastern Mediterranean sea over the period 2000-2018<br>is created using the DYNED atlas, which links the automated mesoscale eddy detection by the AMEDA algorithm with in<br>situ oceanographic observations. This easternmost region of the Mediterranean sea, delimited by the Levantine coast and<br>Cyprus, has a complex eddying activity, which has not yet been fully characterized. Using Lagrangian tracking<br>to investigate the eddy fluxes and interactions between different subregions in this area, we find that the southeastern Levantine<br>area is isolated, with no anticyclone exchanges with the western part of the basin. Moreover the anticyclonic structure above<br>the Eratosthenes seamount is identified as being an anticyclone attractor, differentiated from other anticyclones and staying<br>around this preferred position up to four years with successive mergings. Colocalized in situ profiles inside eddies provide<br>quantitative information on their subsurface structure and show that similar surface signatures correspond to very different<br>physical properties. Despite interannual variability, the so-called "Eratosthenes attractor" stores a larger amount of heat and<br>salt than neighboring anticyclones, in a deeper subsurface anomaly that usually extend down to 500 m. This suggests that this<br>attractor could concentrate heat and salt from this sub-basin, which will impact the properties of intermediate water masses<br>created there.</p>


Ocean Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 1231-1250
Author(s):  
Alexandre Barboni ◽  
Ayah Lazar ◽  
Alexandre Stegner ◽  
Evangelos Moschos

Abstract. Statistics of anticyclonic eddy activity and eddy trajectories in the Levantine Basin over the 2000–2018 period are analyzed using the DYNED-Atlas database, which links automated mesoscale eddy detection by the Angular Momentum Eddy Detection and Tracking Algorithm (AMEDA) algorithm to in situ oceanographic observations. This easternmost region of the Mediterranean Sea, delimited by the Levantine coast and Cyprus, has a complex eddying activity, which has not yet been fully characterized. In this paper, we use Lagrangian tracking to investigate the eddy fluxes and interactions between different subregions in this area. The anticyclonic structure above the Eratosthenes Seamount is identified as hosting an anticyclone attractor, constituted by a succession of long-lived anticyclones. It has a larger radius and is more persistent (staying in the same position for up to 4 years with successive merging events) than other eddies in this region. Quantification of anticyclone flux shows that anticyclones that drift towards the Eratosthenes Seamount are mainly formed along the Israeli coast or in a neighboring area west of the seamount. The southeastern Levantine area is isolated, with no anticyclone transfers to or from the western part of the basin, defining the effective attraction basin for the Eratosthenes anticyclone attractor. Co-localized in situ profiles inside eddies provide quantitative information on their subsurface physical anomaly signature, whose intensity can vary greatly with respect to the dynamical surface signature intensity. Despite interannual variability, the so-called Eratosthenes anticyclone attractor stores a larger amount of heat and salt than neighboring anticyclones, in a deeper subsurface anomaly that usually extends down to 500 m. This suggests that this attractor could concentrate heat and salt from this subbasin, which will impact the properties of intermediate water masses created there.


Author(s):  
Jerrold L. Abraham

Inorganic particulate material of diverse types is present in the ambient and occupational environment, and exposure to such materials is a well recognized cause of some lung disease. To investigate the interaction of inhaled inorganic particulates with the lung it is necessary to obtain quantitative information on the particulate burden of lung tissue in a wide variety of situations. The vast majority of diagnostic and experimental tissue samples (biopsies and autopsies) are fixed with formaldehyde solutions, dehydrated with organic solvents and embedded in paraffin wax. Over the past 16 years, I have attempted to obtain maximal analytical use of such tissue with minimal preparative steps. Unique diagnostic and research data result from both qualitative and quantitative analyses of sections. Most of the data has been related to inhaled inorganic particulates in lungs, but the basic methods are applicable to any tissues. The preparations are primarily designed for SEM use, but they are stable for storage and transport to other laboratories and several other instruments (e.g., for SIMS techniques).


2001 ◽  
Vol 80 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 315-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.F. Cadorin ◽  
D. Jongmans ◽  
A. Plumier ◽  
T. Camelbeeck ◽  
S. Delaby ◽  
...  

AbstractTo provide quantitative information on the ground acceleration necessary to break speleothems, laboratory measurements on samples of stalagmite have been performed to study their failure in bending. Due to their high natural frequencies, speleothems can be considered as rigid bodies to seismic strong ground motion. Using this simple hypothesis and the determined mechanical properties (a minimum value of 0.4 MPa for the tensile failure stress has been considered), modelling indicates that horizontal acceleration ranging from 0.3 m/s2 to 100 m/s2 (0.03 to 10g) are necessary to break 35 broken speleothems of the Hotton cave for which the geometrical parameters have been determined. Thus, at the present time, a strong discrepancy exists between the peak accelerations observed during earthquakes and most of the calculated values necessary to break speleothems. One of the future research efforts will be to understand the reasons of the defined behaviour. It appears fundamental to perform measurements on in situ speleothems.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 2246
Author(s):  
Georgia Charalampous ◽  
Efsevia Fragkou ◽  
Konstantinos A. Kormas ◽  
Alexandre B. De Menezes ◽  
Paraskevi N. Polymenakou ◽  
...  

The diversity and degradation capacity of hydrocarbon-degrading consortia from surface and deep waters of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea were studied in time-series experiments. Microcosms were set up in ONR7a medium at in situ temperatures of 25 °C and 14 °C for the Surface and Deep consortia, respectively, and crude oil as the sole source of carbon. The Deep consortium was additionally investigated at 25 °C to allow the direct comparison of the degradation rates to the Surface consortium. In total, ~50% of the alkanes and ~15% of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were degraded in all treatments by Day 24. Approximately ~95% of the total biodegradation by the Deep consortium took place within 6 days regardless of temperature, whereas comparable levels of degradation were reached on Day 12 by the Surface consortium. Both consortia were dominated by well-known hydrocarbon-degrading taxa. Temperature played a significant role in shaping the Deep consortia communities with Pseudomonas and Pseudoalteromonas dominating at 25 °C and Alcanivorax at 14 °C. Overall, the Deep consortium showed a higher efficiency for hydrocarbon degradation within the first week following contamination, which is critical in the case of oil spills, and thus merits further investigation for its exploitation in bioremediation technologies tailored to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2188
Author(s):  
Salvatore Marullo ◽  
Jaime Pitarch ◽  
Marco Bellacicco ◽  
Alcide Giorgio di Sarra ◽  
Daniela Meloni ◽  
...  

Air–sea heat fluxes are essential climate variables, required for understanding air–sea interactions, local, regional and global climate, the hydrological cycle and atmospheric and oceanic circulation. In situ measurements of fluxes over the ocean are sparse and model reanalysis and satellite data can provide estimates at different scales. The accuracy of such estimates is therefore essential to obtain a reliable description of the occurring phenomena and changes. In this work, air–sea radiative fluxes derived from the SEVIRI sensor onboard the MSG satellite and from ERA5 reanalysis have been compared to direct high quality measurements performed over a complete annual cycle at the ENEA oceanographic observatory, near the island of Lampedusa in the Central Mediterranean Sea. Our analysis reveals that satellite derived products overestimate in situ direct observations of the downwelling short-wave (bias of 6.1 W/m2) and longwave (bias of 6.6 W/m2) irradiances. ERA5 reanalysis data show a negligible positive bias (+1.0 W/m2) for the shortwave irradiance and a large negative bias (−17 W/m2) for the longwave irradiance with respect to in situ observations. ERA5 meteorological variables, which are needed to calculate the air–sea heat flux using bulk formulae, have been compared with in situ measurements made at the oceanographic observatory. The two meteorological datasets show a very good agreement, with some underestimate of the wind speed by ERA5 for high wind conditions. We investigated the impact of different determinations of heat fluxes on the near surface sea temperature (1 m depth), as determined by calculations with a one-dimensional numerical model, the General Ocean Turbulence Model (GOTM). The sensitivity of the model to the different forcing was measured in terms of differences with respect to in situ temperature measurements made during the period under investigation. All simulations reproduced the true seasonal cycle and all high frequency variabilities. The best results on the overall seasonal cycle were obtained when using meteorological variables in the bulk formulae formulations used by the model itself. The derived overall annual net heat flux values were between +1.6 and 40.4 W/m2, depending on the used dataset. The large variability obtained with different datasets suggests that current determinations of the heat flux components and, in particular, of the longwave irradiance, need to be improved. The ENEA oceanographic observatory provides a complete, long-term, high resolution time series of high quality in situ observations. In the future, more similar sites worldwide will be needed for model and satellite validations and to improve the determination of the air–sea exchange and the understanding of related processes.


Ocean Science ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 705-732 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Gohin

Abstract. Sea surface temperature, chlorophyll, and turbidity are three variables of the coastal environment commonly measured by monitoring networks. The observation networks are often based on coastal stations, which do not provide a sufficient coverage to validate the model outputs or to be used in assimilation over the continental shelf. Conversely, the products derived from satellite reflectance generally show a decreasing quality shoreward, and an assessment of the limitation of these data is required. The annual cycle, mean, and percentile 90 of the chlorophyll concentration derived from MERIS/ESA and MODIS/NASA data processed with a dedicated algorithm have been compared to in-situ observations at twenty-six selected stations from the Mediterranean Sea to the North Sea. Keeping in mind the validation, the forcing, or the assimilation in hydrological, sediment-transport, or ecological models, the non-algal Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) is also a parameter which is expected from the satellite imagery. However, the monitoring networks measure essentially the turbidity and a consistency between chlorophyll, representative of the phytoplankton biomass, non-algal SPM, and turbidity is required. In this study, we derive the satellite turbidity from chlorophyll and non-algal SPM with a common formula applied to in-situ or satellite observations. The distribution of the satellite-derived turbidity exhibits the same main statistical characteristics as those measured in-situ, which satisfies the first condition to monitor the long-term changes or the large-scale spatial variation over the continental shelf and along the shore. For the first time, climatologies of turbidity, so useful for mapping the environment of the benthic habitats, are proposed from space on areas as different as the southern North Sea or the western Mediterranean Sea, with validation at coastal stations.


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