New Insights into Tyrrhenian Sea Warming and Heat Penetration through Long-Term Expendable Bathythermograph Data

The warming trend of the Mediterranean region is already well known, but there is still a lack of information on its seasonal/annual to multidecadal time scales and its distribution in all water masses, including deep water. New temporal and spatial evidence of this thermal variability has been pres...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of marine science and engineering Vol. 12; no. 10; p. 1756
Main Authors Ciuffardi, Tiziana, Lo Bue, Nadia, Raiteri, Giancarlo, Marullo, Salvatore, Artale, Vincenzo
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.10.2024
Subjects
Basins
Bathymetry
Bathythermographs
climate change
Climate variability
Datasets
Deep water
Heat
Marginal seas
Mediterranean Sea
Ocean basins
ocean observing systems
ocean water masses
Seasonal distribution
Spatial distribution
Stratification
Surface circulation
Temperature
Trends
Tyrrhenian Sea
Variability
Water masses
XBT measurements
XBTs
Mediterranean Sea
Tyrrhenian Sea
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Summary:The warming trend of the Mediterranean region is already well known, but there is still a lack of information on its seasonal/annual to multidecadal time scales and its distribution in all water masses, including deep water. New temporal and spatial evidence of this thermal variability has been presented in the Tyrrhenian Sea, thanks to twenty-year continuous monitoring by eXpendable BathyThermographs (XBTs) along a fixed route from Genoa to Palermo. The Tyrrhenian Sea is one of the deepest Mediterranean sub-basins (with a maximum depth of about 4000 m), but its interaction with neighbouring basins is controlled by topographical factors, such as the Sardinian Channel to the south and the Corsican Channel to the north. The way in which the warm signal, originating from the Levantine sub-basin, and entering from the south, affects the entire Tyrrhenian Basin spreading rapidly northwards is studied, considering its peculiarities, such as topography, surface circulation, and strong stratification, as well as its climate variability. The warming trend observed for the Tyrrhenian Sea is consistent with the trend for the Mediterranean Sea as a whole. However, the Tyrrhenian Sea shows some peculiar features: around 2014, a shift to a new equilibrium (warmer) state was detected, with mean values along the monitored route that were significantly higher than the previous period (from 1999 to 2013), especially for the subsurface level, from 100 to 450 m depth.
ISSN:2077-1312
2077-1312
DOI:10.3390/jmse12101756