Abstract
In a global context of climate change affecting the marine environment, it is important to consider the effect of extreme events in driving ecological change and to gain a better understanding of conditions to be expected under future scenarios. In this study we focus on monthly oceanographic data collected off Barcelona city during the period 2002-2012, in which extreme air temperatures and exceptional oceanographic events were reported in the western Mediterranean basin. These included two extreme heat waves and major episodes of dense water formation that produced unusually large deep-water contributions, induced oceanographic changes in the coastal zone and caused significant alterations to the marine ecosystem. To determine whether routine monitoring of oceanographic variables in a coastal zone can provide information for recognizing such large-scale events, temperature, salinity, turbidity and fluorescence were analysed to identify their signatures. The results provide an additional tool for monitoring oceanographic events and improving forecasts and future projections.
Highlights
IntroductionUnderstanding marine environmental processes that operate simultaneously but have different time scales (ranging from turbulence to global changes) would require time series of oceanographic variables with high frequency and for long periods (decades) at many points
Understanding marine environmental processes that operate simultaneously but have different time scales would require time series of oceanographic variables with high frequency and for long periods at many points
A strong seasonal component was driven by the warming and progressive stratification of the shallow waters from April to October and the subsequent cooling, which reached a maximum in March and favoured water column mixing and exchanges between coastal and oceanic waters
Summary
Understanding marine environmental processes that operate simultaneously but have different time scales (ranging from turbulence to global changes) would require time series of oceanographic variables with high frequency and for long periods (decades) at many points. High-resolution satellite observations offer a necessary complement to marine observatories by enlarging the coverage of measurements. Numerical modelling is another additional tool for interpreting locally observed evidence in the framework of largerscale oceanographic processes. Several monitoring stations have been in operation along the western Mediterranean during the last few decades and attempts have been made to coordinate observations at national and international scales (CIESM 2008, Estrada et al 2008, Tel et al 2016). Long-term monitoring of basic hydrological variables (temperature and salinity) in deep Mediterranean waters is coordinated in the HYDROCHANGES programme (CIESM 2002, Schroeder et al 2013)
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