Thermal NOAA/AVHRR satellite images relative to the years 1997-2000 are analyzed in this study, in order to obtain a first systematic identification of the sites of highest frequency in cold filaments in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as their properties. These sites are characterised by upwelling and/or the funnelling of strong cold winds by a somewhat irregular coastal orography. Indeed, intense air?sea interaction in the coastal zone generates a particularly strong input of potential vorticity into the sea. This in turn gives origin to cold filaments and jets. In the Mediterranean Sea, the geographical zones with a higher frequency in these jets are the two lobes of the southern Sicilian coast, the sea off eastern Sardinia, that south of the island of Crete, where a particularly intense mesoscale field is evident, and the Balkan coast of the Adriatic Sea. A chosen subset of the examined images is here used to obtain an estimate of a bulk coefficient M for mass exchange between filaments and ambient water, in order to explain the along-flow warming observed in most of the satellite images, at each filament site.

On the dynamics of surface cold filaments in the Mediterranean Sea

Bignami F;Böhm E;D'Acunzo E;
2008

Abstract

Thermal NOAA/AVHRR satellite images relative to the years 1997-2000 are analyzed in this study, in order to obtain a first systematic identification of the sites of highest frequency in cold filaments in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as their properties. These sites are characterised by upwelling and/or the funnelling of strong cold winds by a somewhat irregular coastal orography. Indeed, intense air?sea interaction in the coastal zone generates a particularly strong input of potential vorticity into the sea. This in turn gives origin to cold filaments and jets. In the Mediterranean Sea, the geographical zones with a higher frequency in these jets are the two lobes of the southern Sicilian coast, the sea off eastern Sardinia, that south of the island of Crete, where a particularly intense mesoscale field is evident, and the Balkan coast of the Adriatic Sea. A chosen subset of the examined images is here used to obtain an estimate of a bulk coefficient M for mass exchange between filaments and ambient water, in order to explain the along-flow warming observed in most of the satellite images, at each filament site.
2008
Istituto di Scienze dell'Atmosfera e del Clima - ISAC
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14243/44583
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