Wavelet ridge analysis was applied to the data of drifters caught in the Cyprus Gyre in the eastern Mediterranean Sea to study surface currents at low (rotating circulation) and high (near-inertial motion) frequencies. Drifter observations indicate that the orbital speed is highest at about 30 km from the gyre center (reaching ~45 cm/s) and that the Rossby number in the gyre can be as high as 0.25. Drifters also show that stro...

Internal tides are studied in the central Mediterranean Sea using observational data and numerical experiments. Both numerical results and observations indicate that the baroclinic variability in this area is dominated by the K1 diurnal tide. In agreement with previous studies, the diurnal internal tides have the characteristics of Kelvin-like bottom trapped waves. They are mainly generated by the interaction of the induced ba...

The OceanGliders program started in 2016 to support active coordination and enhancement of global glider activity. OceanGliders contributes to the international efforts of the Global Ocean Observation System (GOOS) for Climate, Ocean Health, and Operational Services. It brings together marine scientists and engineers operating gliders around the world: (1) to observe the long-term physical, biogeochemical, and biological ocean...

The accurate knowledge of the ocean's mean dynamic topography (MDT) is a crucial issue for a number of oceanographic applications and, in some areas of the Mediterranean Sea, important limitations have been found pointing to the need of an upgrade. We present a new MDT that was computed for the Mediterranean Sea. It profits from improvements made possible by the use of extended data sets and refined processing. The updated dat...

Adriatic and Ionian seas are Mediterranean sub-basins linked through the Bimodal Oscillating System mechanism responsible for decadal reversals of the Ionian basin-wide circulation. Altimetric maps showed that the last cyclonic mode started in 2011 but unexpectedly in 2012 reversed to anticyclonic. We related this "premature" inversion to the extremely strong winter in 2012, which caused the formation of very dense Adriatic wa...

This paper is the outcome of a workshop held in Rome in November 2011 on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the POEM (Physical Oceanography of the Eastern Mediterranean) program. In the workshop discussions, a number of unresolved issues were identified for the physical and biogeochemical properties of the Mediterranean Sea as a whole, i.e., comprising the Western and Eastern sub-basins. Over the successive two years, the...

Drifter measurements and satellite altimetry data are merged to reconstruct the surface geostrophic circulation of the Black Sea in the period 1999–2009. This combined data set is used to estimate pseudo-Eulerian velocity statistics for different time periods. Seasonal and interannual variability of currents and kinetic energy fields are described with particular attention to the mesoscale and sub-basin coastal eddies. The mea...

The data provided by 12 drifters deployed in the Northern Aegean Sea in the vicinity of the Dardanelles Strait in August 2008 and February 2009 are used to explore the surface circulation of the basin and the connectivity to the Black Sea. The drifters were deployed within the Dardanelles outflow of waters of Black Sea origin in the Northeastern Aegean. Thanks to the particular choice of the drifter deployment positions, the d...

Statistics of transit and residence times in the Adriatic Sea surface, a semi-enclosed basin of the Mediterranean, are estimated from drifter data and Lagrangian numerical simulations. The results obtained from the drifters are generally underestimated given their short operating lifetimes (half life of ∼40 days) compared to the transit and residence times. This bias can be removed by considering a large amount of numerical pa...

A novel method for three-dimensional variational assimilation of Lagrangian data with a primitive-equation ocean model is proposed. The assimilation scheme was implemented in the Mediterranean ocean Forecasting System and evaluated for a 4-month period. Four experiments were designed to assess the impact of trajectory assimilation on the model output, i.e. the sea-surface height, velocity, temperature and salinity fields. It w...

Data from 38 Argo profiling floats are used to describe the intermediate Mediterranean currents for the period October 2003–January 2010. These floats were programmed to execute 5-day cycles, to drift at a neutral parking depth of 350 m and measure temperature and salinity profiles from either 700 or 2000 m up to the surface. At the end of each cycle the floats remained at the sea surface for about 6 h, enough time to be local...

Within the framework of the EGITTO/EGYPT programs, the spatial structure and the temporal variability of the surface circulation in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea was studied with satellite-tracked drifters. A total of 97 drifters drogued to 15-m nominal depth were released between September 2005 and March 2007, regularly along ship-of-opportunity routes in the Sicily Channel and within specific structures during d...

In the framework of the EU-funded MFSTEP project, autonomous drifting profilers were deployed throughout the Mediterranean Sea to collect temperature and salinity profile data and to measure subsurface currents. The realization of this profiler program in the Mediterranean, referred to as MedArgo, is described and assessed using data collected between June 2004 and December 2006 (including more than 2000 profiles). Recommendat...

A clustering methodology is applied to investigate the thermohaline structure of Levantine Intermediate Water (LIW) in the western Mediterranean basin. Sixteen free-drifting hydrographic profilers were deployed in the framework of the MFSTEP project (MEDARGO component) from September 2003. A total of 925 CTD profiles collected up to the beginning of February 2006 have been used in the analysis. The results are in good agreemen...