Permanent Thermohaline Staircases in the Tyrrhenian Sea

The longest historical time series (14 years, from 2003 to 2016) of temperature and salinity of thermohaline staircases with highly homogeneous and reliable data ever observed is here presented and studied. The thermohaline staircase system of the central Tyrrhenian Sea is due to double diffusion in salt finger regime, and our study reveals its conservative behavior, oscillating among slightly different shapes, passing through merging processes, with a systematic upward drift of the interfaces. Data also show enhanced salt finger processes after 2010, near the bottom, promoted by the ingression from the Western Mediterranean of a new denser water mass due to the Western Mediterranean Transition. Our results are relevant for studying the mixing in the intermediate and deep region and open the way for modeling and theoretical follow-up studies aimed to reproduce and explain these observations.