High resolution modeling of dense water formation in the north-western Mediterranean during winter 2012-2013: Processes and budget

Claude Estournel; Pierre Testor; Pierre Damien; Fabrizio d'Ortenzio; Patrick Marsaleix; Pascal Conan; Faycal Kessouri; Xavier Durrieu de Madron; Laurent Coppola; Jean-Michel Lellouche; Sophie Belamari; Laurent Mortier; Caroline Ulses; Marie-Noëlle Bouin; Louis Prieur

doi:10.1002/2016JC011935

Journal articles

High resolution modeling of dense water formation in the north-western Mediterranean during winter 2012-2013: Processes and budget

Claude Estournel ¹ Pierre Testor ² Pierre Damien ¹ Fabrizio d'Ortenzio ³ Patrick Marsaleix ¹ Pascal Conan ⁴ Faycal Kessouri ¹ Xavier Durrieu de Madron ⁵ Laurent Coppola ³ Jean-Michel Lellouche ⁶ Sophie Belamari ⁷ Laurent Mortier ² Caroline Ulses ¹ Marie-Noëlle Bouin ⁷ Louis Prieur ³

1 LA - Laboratoire d'aérologie

2 VOG - Variabilité de l'Océan et de la Glace de mer

LOCEAN - Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques

3 LOV - Laboratoire d'océanographie de Villefranche

4 LOMIC - Laboratoire d'Océanographie Microbienne

5 CEFREM - Centre de Formation et de Recherche sur les Environnements Méditérranéens

6 Mercator Océan

7 CNRM-GAME - Groupe d'étude de l'atmosphère météorologique

Abstract : The evolution of the stratification of the north-western Mediterranean between summer 2012 and the end of winter 2013 was simulated and compared with different sets of observations. A summer cruise and profiler observations were used to improve the initial conditions of the simulation. This improvement was crucial to simulate winter convection. Variations of some parameters involved in air - sea exchanges (wind, coefficient of transfer used in the latent heat flux formulation, and constant additive heat flux) showed that the characteristics of water masses and the volume of dense water formed during convection cannot be simply related to the time-integrated buoyancy budget over the autumn - winter period. The volume of dense water formed in winter was estimated to be about 50,000 km³ with a density anomaly larger than 29.113 kg m^-3. The effect of advection and air/sea fluxes on the heat and salt budget of the convection zone was quantified during the preconditioning phase and the mixing period. Destratification of the surface layer in autumn occurs through an interaction of surface and Ekman buoyancy fluxes associated with displacements of the North Balearic front bounding the convection zone to the south. During winter convection, advection stratifies the convection zone: from December to March, the absolute value of advection represents 58 % of the effect of surface buoyancy fluxes.

Document type :

Journal articles

Domain :

Sciences of the Universe [physics]

Sciences of the Universe [physics] / Ocean, Atmosphere

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High resolution modeling of dense water formation in the north-western Mediterranean during winter 2012-2013: Processes and budget

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High resolution modeling of dense water formation in the north-western Mediterranean during winter 2012-2013: Processes and budget

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