Study of water masses variability in the Mediterranean Sea using in-situ data / NEMO-Med12 model.

Félix Margirier (1) , Pierre Testor (1) , Laurent Mortier (1) , Thomas Arsouze (2, 3) , Anthony Bosse (4) , Loïc Houpert (5) , Daniel Hayes (6)

1 VOG - Variabilité de l'Océan et de la Glace de mer
2 UME - Unité de Mécanique
3 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)
4 LOCEAN - Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques
5 SAM - The Scottish Association for Marine Science
6 Cyprus Oceanography Center

In the past 10 years, numerous observation programs in the Mediterranean deployed autonomous platforms (moorings, argo floats, gliders) and thus considerably increased the number of in-situ observations and the data coverage. In this study, we analyse time series built with profile data on interannual scales. Sorting data in regional boxes, we follow the evolution of different water masses in the basin and generate indexes to characterize their evolution. We then put those indexes in relation with external (atmospheric) forcings and present an intercomparison with the NEMO-Med12 model to estimate both the skill of the model and the relevance of the data-sampling in reproducing the evolution of water masses properties.

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Geophysics [physics.geo-ph]

Félix Margirier, Pierre Testor, Laurent Mortier, Thomas Arsouze, Anthony Bosse, et al.. Study of water masses variability in the Mediterranean Sea using in-situ data / NEMO-Med12 model.. EGU General Assembly 2016, EGU, Apr 2016, Vienne, Austria. pp.16060. ⟨hal-01514414⟩