Abstract
Abstract. On 9 September 2014, an intensive drifter deployment was carried out in the Strait of Gibraltar. In the frame of the MEDESS-4MS Project (EU MED Program), the MEDESS-GIB experiment consisted of the deployment of 35 satellite tracked drifters, mostly of CODE-type, equipped with temperature sensor sampling at a rate of 30 min. Drifters were distributed along and on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar. The MEDESS-GIB deployment plan was designed as to ensure quasi-synoptic spatial coverage. To this end, four boats covering an area of about 680 NM2 in 6 h were coordinated. As far as these authors know, this experiment is the most important exercise in the area in terms of number of drifters released. Collected satellite-tracked data along drifter trajectories have been quality controlled and processed to build the presented MEDESS-GIB database. This paper reports the MEDESS-GIB data set that comprises drifter trajectories, derived surface currents and in situ SST measurements collected along the buoys tracks. This series of data is available through the PANGAEA (Data Publisher for Earth and Environmental Science) repository, with the following doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.853701. Likewise, the MEDESS-GIB data will be incorporated as part of the Copernicus Marine historical products. The MEDESS-GIB data set provides a complete Lagrangian view of the surface inflow of Atlantic waters through the Strait of Gibraltar and thus, very useful data for further studies on the surface circulation patterns in the Alboran Sea, and their links with one of the most energetic Mediterranean Sea flows: the Algerian Current.
Highlights
Ocean surface dynamics are essential to understand the ocean’s role in many key processes of the Earth’s climate, as the ocean–atmosphere interactions or the global transport and redistribution of mass and energy (GCOS, 2010)
This paper reports the MEDESS-GIB data set that comprises drifter trajectories, derived surface currents and in situ SST measurements collected along the buoys tracks
There have been two major Mediterranean region initiatives, supported within the EU MED Programme, aimed to improve the quality and effectiveness of the decision-making process in case of maritime accidents in the Mediterranean Sea concerning oil spill pollution and SAR operations: TOSCA (“Tracking Oil Spills and Coastal Awareness network”; http://www.toscamed.eu) and MEDESS-4MS (“Mediterranean Decision Support System for Marine Safety”; http://www.medess4ms.eu/) projects. Both projects are quite complementary: TOSCA is focused on the observational component (HF-radars and drifter development) mainly in coastal areas (Bellomo et al, 2015), whereas MEDESS-4MS is more focused on the oil spill modeling component (Capó et al, 2015)
Summary
Ocean surface dynamics are essential to understand the ocean’s role in many key processes of the Earth’s climate, as the ocean–atmosphere interactions or the global transport and redistribution of mass and energy (GCOS, 2010). There have been two major Mediterranean region initiatives, supported within the EU MED Programme, aimed to improve the quality and effectiveness of the decision-making process in case of maritime accidents in the Mediterranean Sea concerning oil spill pollution and SAR operations: TOSCA (“Tracking Oil Spills and Coastal Awareness network”; http://www.toscamed.eu) and MEDESS-4MS (“Mediterranean Decision Support System for Marine Safety”; http://www.medess4ms.eu/) projects Both projects are quite complementary: TOSCA is focused on the observational component (HF-radars and drifter development) mainly in coastal areas (Bellomo et al, 2015), whereas MEDESS-4MS is more focused on the oil spill modeling component (Capó et al, 2015). The following sections describe the MEDESS-GIB and the resulting database, summarizing the campaign objectives and providing details on the drifter deployment plan, the measured Lagrangian trajectories and the pre-processing and quality control procedures applied to build the MEDESSGIB database
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