Suchergebnisse

The contribution of atmospheric pressure and wind to the XXI century sea level variability in Southern Europe is explored under different climate change scenarios. The barotropic version of the HAMSOM model is forced with the output of the atmospheric ARPEGE model run under scenarios B1, A1B and A2. Additionally, a control simulation forced by observed SST, GHGs and aerosols concentrations for the period 1950-2000 and a hindcast forced by a dynamical downscalling of ERA40 for the period 1958-2001 are also run using the same models. The hindcast results have been validated against tide gauge observations showing good agreement with correlations around 0.8 and root mean square error of 3.2. cm. A careful comparison between the control simulation and the hindcast shows a reasonably good agreement between both runs in statistical terms, which points towards the reliability of the modelling system when it is forced only by GHG and aerosols concentrations. The results for the XXI century indicate a sea level decrease that would be especially strong in winter, with trends of up to - 0.8 ± 0.1. mm/year in the central Mediterranean under the A2 scenario. Trends in summer are small but positive (~. 0.05 ± 0.04. mm/yr), then leading to an increase in the amplitude of the seasonal cycle. The interannual variability also shows some changes, the most important being a widespread standard deviation increase of up to 40%. An increase in the frequency of positive phases of the NAO explains part of the winter negative trends. Also, an increase in the NAO variability would be responsible for the projected increase of the interannual variability of the atmospheric component of sea level. Conversely, the intra-annual variability (1-12. months excluding the seasonal cycle) does not show significant changes. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. ; This work has been carried out in the framework of the projects VANIMEDAT-2 (CTM2009-10163-C02-01, funded by the Spanish Marine Science and Technology Program and the E-Plan of the Spanish Government) and ESCENARIOS (funded by the Agencia Estatal de METeorología). Additional funding from the Platja de Palma Consortium is also acknowledged. G. Jordà acknowledges a "JAE-DOC" contract funded by the Spanish Research Council (CSIC). ; Peer Reviewed

Special volume: Advances in Spanish physical oceanography. Scientia Marina 76(Suppl.1) 2012.-- 27 pages, 21 figures ; [EN] The field of physical oceanography has undergone exponential growth in Spain during the last few decades. From a handful of self-taught researchers in the late 1960s there are now several hundred physical oceanographers distributed in some 20 Spanish institutions, and many more working overseas. The First Spanish Physical Oceanography Meeting (EOF1), held in Barcelona in October 2010, was a good example of the high quality and large variety of this research. The facilities and human resources are excellent but the alarming decrease in public investment in science due to the economic crisis must lead the Spanish physical oceanography community to define its current priorities. In this introductory paper to EOF1 we revise our history and where we are now, and suggest that progress in the near future will rely on our intelligence to sustain and enhance human capital, partnership and society oriented research ; [ES] El campo de la oceanografía física ha experimentado un crecimiento exponencial en España durante las últimas décadas. Desde unos pocos oceanógrafos autodidactas a finales de la década de 1960 hemos llegado a varios centenares de oceanógrafos distribuidos en unas 20 instituciones españolas, con otros muchos más trabajando fuera de España. El Primer Encuentro de la Oceanografía Física Española (EOF1), que tuvo lugar en Octubre de 2010 en Barcelona, fue un buen ejemplo de la alta calidad y amplia variedad de estas investigaciones. Las infraestructuras y potencial humano son excelentes pero nos enfrentamos ahora, como resultado de la crisis económica que estamos experimentando, con la amenaza real de una significativa disminución de la inversión pública en Ciencias que debe llevar a la comunidad de oceanógrafos físicos españoles a definir prioridades. En este artículo introductorioa EOF1 revisamos cual ha sido nuestra trayectoria y donde nos hallamos ahora, y proponemos que el progreso en un futuro cercano depende de nuestra habilidad para apoyar y fomentar el capital humano, el asociacionismo y una investigación orientada hacia la sociedad ; The authors wish to thank the following bodies and institutions, which made the Primer Encuentro de la Oceanografía Física Española possible: the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of the Spanish government, the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas for their financial support; Obra Social Fundació La Caixa and Museu Marítim de Barcelona for their collaboration in social and cultural activities; and the Observatori Català de l'Oceà, the Institut de Ciències del Mar, the Laboratori d'Enginyeria Marítima of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, and the Centre Internacional d'Investigació del Recursos Costaners for organizing the event. The authors would also like to express their gratitude to the bodies and institutions that have made possible this special issue: the Instituto Español de Oceanografía, the Observatori Català de l'Oceà, the Institut de Ciències del Mar, the Laboratori d'EnginyeriaMarítima, the Universitat Politècnica deCatalunya and Puertos del Estado ; Peer reviewed

Search and rescue (SAR) modeling applications, mostly based on Lagrangian tracking particle algorithms, rely on the accuracy of met-ocean forecast models. Skill assessment methods are therefore required to evaluate the performance of ocean models in predicting particle trajectories. The Skill Score (SS), based on the Normalized Cumulative Lagrangian Separation (NCLS) distance between simulated and satellite-tracked drifter trajectories, is a commonly used metric. However, its applicability in coastal areas, where most of the SAR incidents occur, is difficult and sometimes unfeasible, because of the high variability that characterizes the coastal dynamics and the lack of drifter observations. In this study, we assess the performance of four models available in the Ibiza Channel (Western Mediterranean Sea) and evaluate the applicability of the SS in such coastal risk-prone regions seeking for a functional implementation in the context of SAR operations. We analyze the SS sensitivity to different forecast horizons and examine the best way to quantify the average model performance, to avoid biased conclusions. Our results show that the SS increases with forecast time in most cases. At short forecast times (i.e., 6 h), the SS exhibits a much higher variability due to the short trajectory lengths observed compared to the separation distance obtained at timescales not properly resolved by the models. However, longer forecast times lead to the overestimation of the SS due to the high variability of the surface currents. Findings also show that the averaged SS, as originally defined, can be misleading because of the imposition of a lower limit value of zero. To properly evaluate the averaged skill of the models, a revision of its definition, the so-called SS∗, is recommended. Furthermore, whereas drifters only provide assessment along their drifting paths, we show that trajectories derived from high-frequency radar (HFR) effectively provide information about the spatial distribution of the model performance inside the HFR coverage. HFR-derived trajectories could therefore be used for complementing drifter observations. The SS is, on average, more favorable to coarser-resolution models because of the double-penalty error, whereas higher-resolution models show both very low and very high performance during the experiments. ; This work was supported by the IBISAR project funded by Mercator Ocean International User Uptake Program under the contract 67-UU-DO-CMEMS-DEM4_LOT7, and the EuroSea European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (grant agreement ID 862626). IBISAR was developed in close collaboration with the Spanish Maritime Safety and Rescue Agency and the Spanish Port System. IH-C was supported by the Vicenç Mut grant funded by the Government of the Balearic Island and the European Social Fund. We are also very grateful for the MEDCLIC project (LCF/PR/PR14/11090002) supported by La Caixa Foundation, contributing to the development of the WMOP model. ; Peer reviewed

García Sotillo, Marcos . et al.-- 9 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables ; 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 680NM2 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 ; The MEDESS-GIB experiment was performed as part of the MEDESS-4MS Project activities (Project ref. 2S-MED11-01), supported by the European Regional Development Fund in the framework of the MED Programme. D. Conti is currently a PhD fellowship (FPI/1543/2013) granted by the Conselleria d'Educació, Cultura i Universitats from the Government of the Balearic Islands co-financed by the European Social Fund. J. M. Sayol is thankful for the financial support of CSIC and FSE with the JAE-pre PhD scholarship program ; Peer Reviewed

Recently, new steps have been taken for the development of operational applications in coastal areas which require very high resolutions both in modeling and remote sensing products. In this context, this work describes a complete monitoring of an oil spill: we discuss the performance of high resolution hydrodynamic models in the area of Gran Canaria and their ability for describing the evolution of a real-time event of a diesel fuel spill, well-documented by port authorities and tracked with very high resolution remote sensing products. Complementary information supplied by different sources enhances the description of the event and supports their validation. ; The authors acknowledge support from IMPRESSIVE, a project funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 821922. The authors acknowledge support of the publication fee by the CSIC Open Access Publication Support Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI). SW acknowledges the support of ONR Grant No. N00014-01-1-0769. ; Peer reviewed