Thermal satellite images relative to the years 1997-2000 are analyzed in this study, in order to infer cold filament and surface jet dynamics in the Mediterranean Sea. The main zones in which these phenomena are seen to occur, 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 is known to generate a particularly strong input of potential
vorticity into the sea, and this in turn gives origin to upwellings, 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 Olbia in Eastern Sardinia, that south of the island of Crete where a particularly intense large scale turbulence field is evident, and the Balkanic coast of the Adriatic Sea. In addition the theoretical analysis of these jets' evolution using a modern version of the potential vorticity conservation, valid even if friction and entrainment are considered, gives further insight into these systems’ dynamics.
In this study we analyse thermal satellite images relative to years 1997-2000, to infer cold filaments and surface jets dynamics in the Mediterranean Sea. The main zones in which these phenomena are seen to occur are characterised by upwelling and/or the funnelling of strong cold winds by somewhat irregular coastal topography. Indeed, intense air-sea interaction in the coastal zone are known to generate a particularly strong input of potential vorticity into marine water, and this in turn gives origin to upwellings, cold filaments and jets. In the Mediterranean Sea, the geographical zones more "rich" in these jets are the two lobes of the southern Sicilian coast, the sea off Olbia in Sardinia, that South of the island of Crete, where a particularly intense large scale turbulence field is evident, and the Balkanic coast of the Adriatic sea. In addition, the theoretical analysis of these jets' evolution using a modern version of the potential vorticity conservation, valid even if friction and entrainment are to be considered , gives some insight into these systems' dynamics.
Remotely sensed surface data over the ocean constitute an independent and quasi-synoptic source with which in situ estimates, such as ship, buoy and coastal/island station data or marine-atmospheric modeling outputs can be complemented and compared. We focus on the Mediterranean Sea, where all the water masses are formed at the surface via recurring extreme air-sea interaction events, thereby rendering necessary the monitoring of the air-sea interaction parameters for the understanding of the variability in the characteristics of the water mass characteristics and circulation. The combined use of passive microwave (SSM/I) and thermal (AVHRR) satellite data has permitted to develop algorithms to obtain specific humidity q, air temperature Ta and wind intensity U. We obtained these from the literature and applied them to the Mediterranean SSM/I data, with the final scope of monitoring its energy and water budgets. The present preliminary validation effort is made against the meteorological data relative to a number of oceanographic cruises carried out on board R/V Urania of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), a data set coming from a moored buoy managed by the Istituto di Automazione Navale (IAN-CNR) and the ECMWF and MIAO model results.
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