Anomalous 2022 deep-water formation and intense phytoplankton bloom in the Cretan area

The Mediterranean Sea is a quasi-permanently stratified and oligotrophic basin with intense late-winter and early-spring phytoplankton blooms typically limited to few regions (i.e. northwestern Mediterranean Sea, the southern Adriatic Sea, and the Rhodes Gyre). In these areas, blooms are sustained by nutrient injection to surface layers by winter vertical mixing and convective processes. A markedly intense bloom was predicted in spring 2022 in an unusual area of the southeastern Mediterranean Sea (i.e. southeast of Crete) by the Mediterranean Sea Copernicus Marine Forecasting Centre (MED MFC) system. Combining Copernicus modelling and observation products, the 2022 event and a number of driving and concurrent features have been investigated in a multidisciplinary way. A noticeable cold spell that occurred in Eastern Europe at the beginning of 2022 has been identified as the main driver of an intense deep-water formation event, with associated high nutrient concentrations in the surface layers. Consequently, an extreme phytoplankton bloom that was 50 % more intense than usual occurred in the area southeast of Crete, starting nearly 1 month later than usual and lasting for 3–4 weeks. Impacts on primary production were also relevant in the 2022 event area and were 35 % higher than the climatological annual primary production. Furthermore, the documented link between primary productivity and fishery catches suggests possible consequences along the whole food chain up to the marine ecosystem in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.