Abstract

A new, high-resolution model for the northern part of the Aegean Sea, aimed primarily at climatological research (relaxation and data assimilation-free climate simulations), is hereby presented, along with the results of a 28-year-long simulation covering the period from 1986 to 2013. The model applied is the Regional Ocean Modelling System (ROMS). A significant improvement over previous models of the Aegean introduced in this work is the replacement of parameterizations of the Dardanelles exchange by a fully three-dimensional simulation of the flow in the Strait. The incorporation of part of the Marmara Sea in the model domain enables the interaction with other regional climate simulations, thus allowing climatic variability of the exchange of the Mediterranean and Black Seas. An extensive validation is carried out comparing the model output with all the available observations from several different platforms, i.e., satellite sea surface temperature and height, T/S profiles from R/V ships, and HF radar surface currents velocity. We focus on the model’s ability to reproduce, to some extent, the distinct thermohaline features and circulation patterns that characterize this specific area of the Mediterranean Sea. Our findings, after comparing simulation results with all the available observations, revealed the model’s sufficiency to simulate very adequately the complex hydrology of the North Aegean Sea, and the model’s ability to reproduce incidents of deep-water formation that took place in the region in previous decades during the Eastern Mediterranean Transient (EMT).

Highlights

  • IntroductionThe North Aegean Sea is one of the most intriguing seas of the Mediterranean, being the first receptor of waters from the Black Sea through the so-called Turkish Strait System (TSS), comprising the Dardanelles and Bosphorus Straits and the Marmara Sea)

  • The North Aegean Sea is one of the most intriguing seas of the Mediterranean, being the first receptor of waters from the Black Sea through the so-called Turkish Strait System (TSS), comprising the Dardanelles and Bosphorus Straits and the Marmara Sea). While it is one of the northernmost extremities of the basin, and an alternative source of Eastern Mediterranean Deep Waters (EMDW), along with the Adriatic Sea [1,2], the inflow of very light, low-salinity waters from the Black Sea through the Turkish Straight System (TSS) plays a critical role in controlling deep-water formation over the basin for the following reasons: (a) the lateral buoyancy inflow through the Dardanelles reduces surface density and increases stratification, hindering the formation of very dense waters, and (b) the Black Sea Waters (BSW) form a thin surface layer, colder than its underlying waters of Aegean/Levantine origin, a condition minimizing heat losses to the atmosphere in the winter [3]

  • The numbers are of the same order of magnitude, the lower trend of the simulations seems to be due to the initial overestimation of the sea surface temperature (SST)

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Summary

Introduction

The North Aegean Sea is one of the most intriguing seas of the Mediterranean, being the first receptor of waters from the Black Sea through the so-called Turkish Strait System (TSS), comprising the Dardanelles and Bosphorus Straits and the Marmara Sea) While it is one of the northernmost extremities of the basin, and an alternative source of Eastern Mediterranean Deep Waters (EMDW), along with the Adriatic Sea [1,2], the inflow of very light, low-salinity waters from the Black Sea through the TSS plays a critical role in controlling deep-water formation over the basin for the following reasons: (a) the lateral buoyancy inflow through the Dardanelles reduces surface density and increases stratification, hindering the formation of very dense waters, and (b) the Black Sea Waters (BSW) form a thin surface layer, colder than its underlying waters of Aegean/Levantine origin, a condition minimizing heat losses to the atmosphere in the winter [3]. Most simulations of the circulation of the Aegean Sea have been aimed mainly for operational oceanography applications [11,12,13,14], for which parameterizations of the seasonal cycle of the Dardanelles exchange [15] are considered adequate

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Conclusion

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